Time: 144 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Violence & offensive language
Cast:
John Krasinski as Jack Silva
James Badge Dale as Tyrone S. “Rone” Woods
Max Martini as Mark “Oz” Geist
Director: Michael Bay

I remember watching 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi for the first time many years ago, and since I had been revisiting and watching a lot of Michael Bay’s movies, I decided to rewatch it. It is still a solid movie, and I’d go so far as to say that it’s among Bay’s best films.

This movie is based on a true life event from the early 2010s and I remember in the lead up to its release that people had some big concerns about it. The last time Michael Bay directed a movie based on a true life war event was Pearl Harbor, which seems to be regarded as one of his least liked efforts. Thankfully, 13 Hours is really well handled on the whole. The first act is where the movie is at its weakest as it starts very slow and the attempts at humour and character building moments don’t quite succeed. Once it enters its second act however, that’s when it really picks up. 13 Hours is one of Bay’s most emotional movies and is by far his most mature film. Even the typical humour expected from him is kept to a minimum. You can really tell that Bay cared about telling this story and is very genuine in his efforts. On top of that, from the second act onwards, the pacing is pretty fast, and while there still isn’t a ton of character depth (as said earlier), the movie does try to give a little bit of depth to each character, commendable considering the number of characters here. It wouldn’t be accurate to call this movie apolitical, but 13 Hours makes the wise decision to make sure the focus is on the central soldiers and takes place through their perspectives. This helps you to be immersed in their situation. Aside from the first act, my main criticism is probably that at 2.5 hours, its perhaps a bit too long.

There’s a great cast here, from John Krasinski as the lead, to James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber, Matt Letscher, Toby Stephens and more. Each actor does well at making their character/real life role feel real.

This movie is very well directed by Michael Bay, with the camerawork and exciting action, you can definitely tell that he made this movie. Despite this, it does not fall into being just the same sort of action in Bay’s other movies. The cinematography is gorgeous and captures the action, but also shows a lot of the grimy details on screen. Bay keeps things serious and very grounded, and fittingly it doesn’t feel too indulgent. While there’s a lot of tension and suspense, the war also feels frightening and you really feel the impact when someone is shot or killed.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is a solid and well made war thriller, with a good cast and great action. It’s among Michael Bay’s best movies.