13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

The solid action scenes aren’t enough to save the flat story. In an effort to be serious, Bay becomes less entertaining. We’ve seen bands of tough guys pitted against ragheads a billion times. Of course, the bloody finale is fine, but I wanted more catchphrases and some crazy sadistic son of a bitch to spice up the boredom a little. I understand that based on real events means less of everything and more harsh reality, but then it would require a more interesting historical milestone than this. Next time they should try Greengrass or to film it from the Jihadis’ point of view, where the goons from the CIA would play the bad guys. (08/07/2016)

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)

Michael Bay is a commercial filmmaker with a great grasp of basic genre scales and practices, but he cannot naturalise all the events, including the action sequences, and give them a fatal, physically painful feel. 13 Hours is a prototype of a good action flick, but it desperately lacks any innovative impulse that would elevate it to the category of excellent – the protagonist is presented using the most profane clichés and his only motivation is traditionally to return to his wife and small daughters, while the other players in the story are nothing but passer-bys, hard to tell from one another thanks to identical physical parameters in the action turmoil. The basic plot is plumped up by the annoying figure of the irrational boss, who only acts expediently to further escalate the situation, and finally the action itself doesn't make you completely surrender to it and forget everything else. We can praise the fast pace, thanks to which the runtime doesn't feel excessive, and the opening documentary passage and the related depiction of Benghazi as a real hell on earth, where killing is the order of the day. It's a more sincere and effective film than the disparate Pearl Harbor, but still too contrived and lacking in intensity, a stale looser compared to Black Hawk Down. 60% (30/05/2016)

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)