Film Review: "13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi" (2016).

"In 2012, the threat level in Benghazi, Libya was deemed "critical". When everything went wrong, six men had the courage to do what was right." This is 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. This action thriller film directed by Michael Bay, written by Chuck Hogan, and based on Mitchell Zuckoff's 2014 book of the same name. A team of six members of a security team fight to defend an American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, against a wave of terrorist attacks.

In early February 2014, it was announced that Paramount Pictures was in talks with 3 Arts Entertainment to acquire the film rights to Zuckoff's book. Hogan was set to adapt the book. In late October 2014, Bay was set to produce and direct. Bay said he was attracted to the project because he'd used veterans in all of his films, as actors and technical advisors, and felt he would be uniquely qualified to tell their story. By late April 2015, James Badge Dale, John Krasinski, Max Martini, Dominic Fumusa, Pablo Schreiber, David Denman, Matt Letscher, Toby Stephens, Freddie Stroma, David Costabile, David Giuntoli, Demetrius Grosse, and Wrenn Schmidt were cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced, and took place in Malta and Morocco. A large film set was built in Ta' Qali, Malta According to producer Erwin Stoff, the diplomatic compound and CIA annex were built using the actual plans. Bay wanted to shoot on film, and cinematographer Dion Beebe wanted to shoot digitally. Bay ultimately accepted shooting digitally because of the number of night scenes and the tight production schedule. Some of the movie did end up being shot on film, with Bay operating his personal Arriflex 235 camera.

The film stars Badge Dale, Krasinski, Martini, Fumusa, Schreiber, Denman, Letscher, Stephens, Stroma, Costabile, Giuntoli, Grosse, and Schmidt. The cast, without a single worthy line to wrap their credible talents around – are attractive actors, but they can't animate this moldy action thriller. Nearly every line of the script drops from the actors' mouths with the leaden clank of exposition, timed with bad sitcom beats. 

It tries to be the Black Hawk Down of war movies, but it's just a deafening and tedious action thriller filled with laughably bad dialogue. The action sequences were anything but spectacular. It was a two-hour and thirty minute film that fell more like a five hour film, about how, on Sep.11, 2012, six members of Annex Security Team who fought to defend the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya after waves of attacks by militants. Its centerpiece is a never-ending minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a political action thriller of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialogue, it will not be because you admire them. There is no sense of history, strategy or context. Humvees, soldiers and dirt combust and collide in the film, but nothing else does in one of the wimpiest war films ever filmed.

Simon says 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi receives:

Also, see my review for Transformers: Age of Extinction.