13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Michael Bay is making a comeback and after all the trailers in early February, he's serving up the first major surprise of the year, although I'm not concerned about how much hate the film will get and for what. It's impossible not to expect Black Hawk Down version 2.0, but the fact that the viewer actually gets exactly that in the end is actually a good thing. The difference is that while Scott has elevated warfare to cinematic art, Bay serves it up in his own way, within the subgenre of his own creative ego. Take it or leave it. 15 years have passed quickly and the audience's perception has fundamentally changed, so if you grew up on "Call of Duty" (and other wannabe clones), you can’t help but be intrigued. Bay takes the path of least resistance and quite sympathetically lines up the flesh-and-blood protagonists, going after all the clichés and cheesy scenes so hard that you don't actually get angry at him - because only he can do them that way. He lets the paranoia of a broken state, where a foreigner can't be sure of anything, pour off the screen in full throttle and then unleashes a full-blooded barrage of war that lasts, with few breaks, until the end, when the survivors are in tears and so are you. In fact, the action is something so impressive, at once absorbing in the opacity of the camera and the editing, that one is left wondering why it doesn't bother us this time. It's wartime carnage without the slightest overlap, but also without cinematic compromise. In the week of the presidential primary, Republicans couldn't have asked for anything better to be in movie theaters. PS: I understand that Michael has to give the heads at Universal something to do, but couldn't they negotiate a deal of five personal action films for every Transformers? (03/02/2016)

Black Hawk down for good. After watching the murderous footage and a more than thorough introduction, it is clear that this is a dream project, whose author was unrestrained and thus able to fulfil his greatest wishes. And although the motivational speeches or threats about dead Americans bring to mind Pearl Harbor with their quantity, it only slightly diminishes the experience. When it comes down to it, Grade AAA Action comes to the forefront, proving that Michael Bay simply never gets old, but matures in his own way. Every salvo or explosion surpasses everything you could possibly see in the genre with its dynamism, and the increasing fear for the main characters drives towards an overheated and even more exhaustively satisfying finale for the audience. (03/02/2016)

Bay messes around with digital and doesn't realize that if there's anything his visual signature is good for, it's definitely not high-frequency, especially when combined with a portrayal of real-life traumatic events. The problem is the lighting in general, especially at night, where he fails to avoid his trademark sharp contre-jour and backlighting in almost pastel shades, which successfully ruins the desired feeling of the viewer being in Benghazi with the characters, instead giving the impression of being on set with the actors. It doesn't help at all that there are almost thirty different characters running around the story, a good half of whom look more or less the same and don't differ much in their personal motivations either, since they all miss their families and children. Taken out of context with overwrought visual craziness (where there's supposed to be pain and trauma, there's a TPS shot of a mortar shell landing; where there's supposed to be sweat and tears, there's a charred family photo falling from the sky) doesn't add much to the integrity of it all. So all that's left are a few perfectionistically shot scenes of wartime chaos and a final message from an American soldier to a bloodied Libyan, "You should clean up this mess," which sadly underscores the current toothlessness of American foreign policy, which put out what fires it could for 60 years and has now decided to walk away from it all as if it had nothing to do with it. (25/05/2016)

Considering that this is Michael Bay, it's actually quite good. I don't trust him, but it's clear that he is genuinely interested in war and war films, so he knows how to make them. At the end, there are once again emotions that he doesn't know how to capture, but the choice of actors who are not that well-known was a good decision and gives the film a good look. (26/05/2016)

I wonder what the Americans would make films about if they weren't constantly spreading democracy everywhere. I can’t wait to see an action-packed film about returning stolen land to Indian tribes. But back to the film. The fight scenes are shot well – I especially liked the sequence with the mine à la first-person action. Unfortunately, the film is ruined by E.T.-call-home-type scenes. One of the final lines "I don't know how you survived all that. But I know how the rest of us did" almost made me throw up in my mouth a little. As usual, a giant dose of patriotism and pathos, but I’m sure the film is a huge success on the home front. (10/07/2016)