Director Michael Bay
Starring John Krasinski, Pablo Schreiber, James Badge Dale
Rated MA
Score 4/6

As an American ambassador is killed during an attack at a U.S. compound in Libya, a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.

13 Hours was adapted from a 2014 book 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi co-written by Mitchell Zuckoff and the Annex Security Team. This is exactly the kind of movie that you would expect Michael Bay to direct because we all know he is the guy that you go to when you have to blow to stuff up. I know I’m being a bit of smart arse here but Bay has directed so many action movies he probably could have directed this movie in his sleep.
Now maybe this could be considered to be piece of “Hollywood Propoganda” because this was only adapted from one book. With some historical movies it was always good to get as clear a picture as possible and sometimes to be able to do that you need multiple points of view. But considering that movie came in with a running time of 2 hours and 24 minutes that might have been a little hard from a production and audience bladder size stand point, and after all the Annex Security Team where in the thick of the action. And a certain level of care and respect was taken with the portrayal of the Americans in the movie while there seemed to have been that almost no effort was made by the filmmakers to explain why the Libyans where attacking.
It should be noted that I was unfamiliar with most of the cast with the exception of John Krasinski and Max Martini. It was a bit of surprise to see that John Krasinski was cast in 13 hours while seems that Martini pops in almost every other American war movie that I’ve seen, his distinctive voice seems to bring a pleasant reassurance.