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)

13 Hours endet das ganze, subjektiv gesehen, denn Michael zieht eine pathetische Patrone nach der anderen aus dem Ärmel, es fehlt auch nicht an blutigen Plastiktüten und einer amerikanischen Flagge... Ansonsten ist dieser Versuch, die Absurdität der geopolitischen Situation aus einem realistischen Blickwinkel zu betrachten, süßlich cheesy. Man würde wohl gerne mit den meisten Kontraktoren ein Glas Bier trinken oder zu einer Fuchsjagd gehen, denn es sind vollbärtige, gesprächige, vielleicht etwas einfachere Menschen, die allerdings im Gegensatz zu den nur allzu schlauen und übergebildeten Operativlern "mit einer Karte gut auskommen“. Aber diese Action auf Wellen hat es in sich, auch einen Gore-Faktor und Dynamik. Manchmal vergisst Bay jedoch, dass er sich eigentlich hatte zügeln wollen und holt seine typischen Mörser heraus. Argumente das Filmmaterial derart in die Länge zu ziehen, gibt es kaum, und ideologisch bewegt sich dieser Streifen (wie Michaels "nachdenklichere“ Filme) auf einem Minenfeld der Stutzigkeit ... aber es macht Spaß, ist nicht so scharfkantig zugeschnitten und kohärent wie Black Hawk Down, allerdings dennoch zuverlässig genug, um zum schweißtreibendsten und sentimentalsten Machomovie des Jahres 2016 gekürt zu werden. Schade, dass am Ende kein Optimus Prime auftaucht. Das wär´ doch ein Ding. (18.01.2017)

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)

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)

Michael Bay is searching and doesn't know which way to go. He may be aging and maturing in certain creative aspects, but at the same time he is dramatically losing his directorial touch and there is almost nothing left of what entertained his millions of fans and die-hard worshippers in the 90s and 00s. Nowadays they're more or less experiments meant to evoke some sort of shift in the viewer's perception, but I want the old Armageddon and 14 cuts per second back, not a half digital copy of Black Hawk Down where the dying and marine feeling is similarly raw but formally lost before our eyes. The viewer is eventually hit by explosions and bullets, but not entirely in a positive way. It's not as it should be. (05.02.2016)

Schade, dass man manche von den sympathisch glaubhaften bärtigen Männern in dem Chaos so leicht verwechselt, obwohl sich der Anfang des Films Mühe mit ihrer Vorstellung gibt. Das ist nämlich die einzige Sache, die mich bei 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi gestört hat. Es ist aber gut möglich, dass wenn ich den Film als DVD sehen werde, dass ich sie schon auseinanderhalten kann. Dadurch wird der Film nur noch besser werden. Michael Bay hat mich überrascht – der Film ist nämlich nicht besonders pathetisch (für seine Verhältnisse!), das Warten auf die ziemlich bescheidene Action ist wirklich spannend, das Drehbuch kann es sich leisten, dass die Figuren Sätze wie “Das ist wie in Black Hawk Down!“ sagen, ohne dass es lächerlich klingt, und der Regisseur kann mit einem Trickflug einer Minenwerfergranate auf die japanische Bombe in seinem Film Pearl Harbor verweisen. Die Länge des Films habe ich fast nicht wahrgenommen. Es ist ständig etwas passiert und alles hat sich in Grenzen gehalten. Kurzum mehr als ein guter Film. (05.02.2016)

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)

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)

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)

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)

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is one of the more appealing efforts in Michael Bay's repertoire. Apart from the really good visuals, the well-fitting casting led by John Krasinski is a delight. The subject logically lends itself to pathos and cheap American patriotism, but in this respect I was very pleasantly surprised. For Bay does not portray the central characters as black and white army machines or elusive green brains, but rather as "everyday heroes" who, apart from serving their country, are mainly looking forward to returning home to their families. The distinct humanization of the central characters thus adds an appealing humanistic dimension to the entire film. (10.04.2020)