Wartime Horrors

Rating: 7/10 (17 January 2016)

Michael Bay needs to stop making Transformers films. Pearl Harbor was definitely a mess at times, but it's films like 13 Hours that Bay should focus on. You can tell how passionate Bay is for these stories and our heroes overseas. There is still plenty of Bay-isms throughout 13 Hours, but for the most part, it's a well made film with more heart and emotion than any of his last handful of films combined.
An important difference between this film and other Bay films is that it feels like he left all of the script duties to other people. There aren't any gratuitous shots of women and there were minimal slow motion action shots. Granted, some of those slow motion shots were substituted for the highly overused hand-held camera work, otherwise known as 'shaky cam'. Seriously Hollywood, can we stop that? But Bay pulled back on the action and created a really scary and realistic world in Libya.
This tells the story of the Benghazi soldiers who were thrust into helping an entire undercover base when chaos ensues. An important thing Bay does is create an atmosphere that is clearly layered with people who don't understand what's going on and why it's happening. It's those choices by Bay that give the film its depth in its quieter moments. Yep, Bay actually developed his characters relatively well, something those Transformers films never really accomplished.
The film does however try to pull on your heartstrings a little too much at times, including showing all of the soldiers at the same time contacting their families and friends a mere day before the attacks. A little more subtly would have helped, Bay. With that said, you absolutely end up caring about the characters involved in these attacks, and Bay even shows the Libyans who helped the U.S. when our 'friendlies' weren't available, a nice touch for a Hollywood film.
Another complaint I had was that sometimes the tone of the film shifts from being darkly serious to a little too playful when characters start cracking a few jokes during intense battle sequences. I would have liked a little more consistency.
A character describes the events of the film towards the end as 'feeling like he's in a horror film'. I can't disagree with him. There were moments of tension and terror of 13 Hours that surpassed some horror films of the past few years, that can also be contributed to Bay's work. Last but not least, I'd like to give a shout-out to Lorne Balfe who composed the music. The score complemented the film well, especially in its most heartfelt and heartbreaking moments. A job well done Bay and crew, 13 Hours is a solid film.
+Well developed story and characters
+Incredible score
+Tension and horrifying moments
-A little more subtly in big moments would have been nice
-Tone shifts a bit here and there
-Shaky cam
7.0/10