An tense, engrossing true story skilfully told. A must-see!

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2016)

I pretty much knew what to expect going in, and I was not disappointed. It's a tense, emotional, solidly done action movie that deserves to be seen and recognized as such. Sure, it could be a little shorter, and it's cheesy at times, and the shaky camera is annoying, but overall, it's the best and the most significant film Michael Bay has ever done. And kudos for going out of his way to remain politically neutral, although the story itself leaves the viewer with a lot of questions about our involvement in the Middle East -- regardless of the administration.
However, other people already commented in detail on this aspect of the story, so I'll defer to the earlier reviews for that.
What I do want to comment on is how films like this bring out outright partisanship among the critics. If the topic wasn't such a hot political potato and if it wasn't a Michael Bay movie (critics do love to hate him), it would be hovering somewhere between mid-70s and 80% on the RT. As it stands, it's teetering between 59% (green) and 60% (red), changing color every few hours. Some negative reviews don't even bother to cover their venom with a fig leaf of artistic assessment. So my advice would be to ignore the critics altogether. If you're still not certain whether you want to see the movie or not (and I believe that every conscientious adult should see it in order to draw their own conclusion), read what other viewers are saying. The viewer approval rating on RT currently stands at 86%, and that's much closer to the real worth of the film than the critics' rating.