13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi Review

     When most people hear the name Michael Bay they automatically think "Oh, that one dude who puts all those explosions in his movies". While this true in his more recent films especially the Transformers franchise, Bay has shown us that he can direct a solid action film if given the right story. Some of his previous films such as The Rock and Bad Boys often go unnoticed now. With 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, Bay returns to his days of a high octane, fun, and entertaining action filmmaking.

     13 Hours tells the story of an elite group of Spec-Ops that must defend their base after an American ambassador is killed at a U.S. compound in Libya. However when their allies and enemies are just everyday people roaming the street, it makes for quite a confusing situation.
     It was great to see Bay make a film and not overdo it with classic Michael Bay-isms. There were many explosions. Although they were much needed and paced very well. There were no girls in daisy dukes washing tanks. There wasn't that overuse of blue and yellow lighting we get in every single one of his films. This felt like a natural and fresh take from his previous projects. Although there was one classic Bay-ism that took me away from the film.
     There are a lot of slow motion shots. While they work for some scenes, there were times where it just felt unneeded and dragged on a little too much. There were also some normal story problems as well. Pacing was a little off at times. It was understood, Bay was trying to show how war can often be waiting around at times, however it felt like this dragged on as well. I also felt as though are characters were never that vulnerable and it felt a little too patriotic at times. I am happy Bay did not dabble in the politics of this film but he could have done a little better with the character development.

     The performances in this film are pretty solid for the most part. Jack Silva played by John Krasinski is the main focus on the story and Krasinski really does well for his first action blockbuster. You can definitely see the anger in his eyes in certain scenes and he goes through quite the range of emotions in this film. The standout for me was Kris 'Tanto' Paranto played by Pablo Schreiber. Tanto is the kind of the comedic relief for this serious story but the jokes are well placed and stay true to the character. There was not any case where his jokes took the audience away from the action.
     This is just a January action-flick so the expectations weren't that high going in. Although this is a fun, pulse bounding, action film that I believe Michael Bay really needed for his career. Other then lack of character development, too much slo-mo at times, and bad pacing here and there, this is a pretty fun action film that you don't have to see in theatre but there's a smidge of more enjoyment by doing so.

Rating: 7.3 out of 10