The emotional manipulation leaves a bad taste

Rating: 5/10 (23 September 2018)

I like to think Michael Bay has a good film in him that would get him critical acclaim. Pain & Gain was a step in the right direction. 13 Hours is not that film. At times I was left open mouthed with the appalling dialogue coming out of the various actors mouths.
Jack Silva (John Krasinski) and best friend Tyrone Woods (James Badge Dale) are highly paid private security contractors for a secret CIA compound in Benghazi, Libya. Both are experienced men who have worked in war zones.
Benghazi is regarded as the wild west where you cannot tell the difference between a friendly faction and an enemy faction. The station chief does not want the contractors to engage in any shootout in case it leads to further problems and negative media coverage.
When Ambassador Chris Stevens arrives at the Embassy compound, the contractors are concerned with the light security. Their concerns are dismissed. When the embassy comes under attack, Silva, Woods and the others belated go and try and rescue the ambassador. They later try to hold off the militia. Any outside help seems to be slow in arriving.
Bay has no problems with the action sequences. He also has no problems trying to manipulate the audience emotionally. Bay keeps it simple, the bad guys are the weasel pen pushers working for the State Department or the Defence Department. The contractors are virtuous, heroic. Hold on, aren't they basically highly paid mercenaries? Who knows, they are thinly characterised in this film and I could barely tell them apart.
Strangely, Bay never specifically blames Obama or Hillary Clinton for the fiasco; yet his film shows that Benghazi was an absolute mess. Why does he pull his punches and not blame the people at the top? Probably in order to make the film, Bay had to manipulate the truth!