Getting 7,000 miles from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli was easier, in its day and way, than getting the 400 miles from Tripoli to Benghazi today.
Set in the same lawless pirate-terrorist enclave that inspired the Marine Corps Hymn two centuries ago, Michael Bay’s explosive, $50 million film of the disastrous 2012 events in Libya is a far better rendering than the controversial director’s past critics and present-day detractors led us to expect.
Starring: John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Pablo Schreiber.
Rating: R for strong combat violence throughout, bloody images and language.
It opens with a tense, typical-at-the-time scene of Benghazi’s arms market, where crazy-looking guys sell weapons looted from late dictator Gadhafi’s arsenal, as an ominous musical ostinato accompanies the first of many dizzying car chases to come.
Arrogant, repulsive CIA agent-in-charge “Bob” (David Costabile) tells his handful of security contractors: “We hired the brightest minds from Harvard and Yale” to run things. “The best thing you can do is stay out of their way.”
Those tough soldiers try to do so, lifting weights and Skyping with their stressed wives back home until idealistic Ambassador Chris Stevens (Matt Letscher) comes to visit — what, exactly? It’s not an embassy. It’s a temporary and highly vulnerable mission facility for a CIA outpost whose covert business the State Department is charged with protecting.
Libyan sheep and shepherds wander incongruously around the place, among weird shredded plastic strips of what the Yanks call “Zombieland.” There’ll be terrible chaos and confusion there soon, including amazing shots from inside a mortar launcher, when the compound’s “safe haven” turns out to be anything but.
What’s most astonishing is that only four Americans were killed: Ambassador Stevens, Foreign Service Information officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. I disbelieved but doublechecked and confirmed the movie’s depiction of Libyan militant casualties — about 100.
Mr. Bay’s action films — from “Bad Boys” (1995) and his Alcatraz yarn “The Rock” (1996) through four ridiculous “Transformers” flicks, which grossed $5 billion — are all characterized by fast edits, extreme special F/X and insanely spectacular explosions, plus a manipulation of patriotic symbols and soaring music for emotional impact. His sci-fi disaster thriller “Armageddon” (1998) was the only really good one.
But Mr. Bay has risen to the occasion at hand — to the woeful lack of security and bureaucratic failures of the DOS, DOD and CIA to prepare for militant action on the 9/11 anniversary of 2012. And give him and the film credit for his accuracy and clarification of the main issues:
• The fact that it took eight days for the Obama administration to acknowledge it was a premeditated terrorist attack rather than a spontaneous demonstration against the anti-Muslim film.
• The “stand-down” orders came from the CIA in Libya, not the State Department or “above” in Washington.
• It was 30 minutes between the start of the attack on Ambassador Stevens’ mission, the setting fire to it, and the finding of Mr. Smith’s body. The subsequent CIA annex attack lasted exactly 11 minutes.
No miraculous outside rescue was ever even possible.
Paramount says the film is apolitical, but its marketing campaign targets conservatives — buying ad time on Fox News after President Obama’s State of the Union Address and supplying behind-the-scenes footage for Megyn Kelly’s upcoming special Monday. “We’re on religious radio and websites because that audience is definitely responding to this story,” says Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore.
The film never once mentions Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, but right-wing talk radio host Hugh Hewitt (et al.) calls it “an indictment” that will leave its viewers “seething about Hillary’s massive fail that night in 2012” — just in time for the 2016 presidential election kickoff.
In “13 Hours,” Mr. Bay indulges his film fetishes as always but with relative restraint. His wildly compelling battle sequences obscure the storytelling, to some extent, but his characters and their emotions feel very genuine indeed, thanks to the terrific performances of John Krasinski, David Denman, Pablo Schreiber and James Badge Dale.
The only thing everyone agrees on, in the words of one character, is: “This should never have happened.” With or without a political agenda, this visceral action thriller film demonstrates why.
Post-Gazette film critic emeritus Barry Paris: parispg48@aol.com.
First Published: January 15, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
