13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi - A Michael Bay Film

A Michael Bay film? Yeah, I know that most people would trash his movies. But for action movie lover such as I, actually quite enjoy his movies. Usually it has the elements of grand action, some slow motion scenes, lots of explosions, car chases and special effects. I believe there is no need for me to mention what films he has directed.

Anyway, I watched this movie after I saw some tweets from CGV Blitz on 2 April 2016 promoting this film, giving 4 reasons why we should watch it. So, without hesitation, I watched it on the following day. 

Well, once the movie started, for the first 10 or 15 minutes, I was starting to think to myself, "what have I gotten myself into?". I truly felt at first that the film was too crowded, with unclear direction where it was going. And no major star actor did not help at all, especially with most of the main characters faces were all bearded and made me difficult to differentiate who was who. LOL.

The movie was shown in Libya in the year 2012, where after Muammar Gaddafi the leader/dictator was overthrown, the country was in chaos and seemed to be without law. US government wanted to help the country and they setup a CIA base in Benghazi with > 20 people working, gathering intel and so on. This base was guarded by 5 ex military people who became private military contractors called Global Response Staff (GRS) led by Tyrone "Rone" Woods (played by James Badge Dale). Other members were Mark "Oz" Geist (played by Max Martini), John "Tig" Tiegen (played by Dominic Fumusa), Kris "Tanto" Paronto (played by Pablo Schreiber) and Boon (played by David Denman). The newest member of the team, Jack Da Silva (played by John Krasinski) just came to Libya to be part of Rone's team. 

In the following half hour or so, we were shown the activities of the CIA members, but mostly the 6 GRS members in the base. It was shown that they were mostly family men who worked there more for financial reasons than patriotic reasons. We were also introduced to the Chief of the CIA base (played by David Costabile) who really dislike GRS. In addition there were also some other agents such as Sona (played by Alexia Barlier), Brit (played by Fredie Noma). Another noteworthy character would be Amahl, a Libyan who helped as translator for the CIA base. And of course Glen (played by Toby Stephens) who was also GRS officer but based in Tripoli.

On the 10th September 2012, the US ambassador Chris Stevens (played by Matt Letscher) was scheduled to come to Libya for maintaining diplomatic relationship. He would be accompanied by team of 2 men consisting of Scott and Dave. They were stationed in a large villa which was bullet proof with the size of 9 acres. Rone's team gave their worried assessments as the place was too large and the people guarding seemed to be inexperienced. Nevertheless, they promised to provide support if needed.

On the day after, due to the 9/11 anniversary, the ambassador was advised to remain at the villa and not go out at all. This would be where the film start to pick up the pace and I say, it was very fast moving forward. We would see that the Libyan militants launched heavy attacks to the villa using machine guns, rocket launcher and setting up fire.

With so few people guarding the villa since the local armies called 17-Feb militia left the compound for the US ambassador guards to fight by themselves, the situation became very critical. The GRS team felt very frustrated as they were not allowed to give aid by the Chief. 

So can Rone's team save the US ambassador? Can they save the CIA base from the attacks? All these would be revealed and rounded off in the 13 hours long of fighting which was compiled in the following 1.5 hour.

I admitted that I got "strapped" to my seat for that remaining part. Watching the movie would make you feel that you were actually in a real war zone. So I could not help but having small sense of relief every time there was like a short "break" during the attacks.

I pretty much had a great moment watching this film. This is based on a true story. The GRS team and CIA people, including the ambassador were real life persons. And by the end of the movie, we would be shown of what happened to the people involved after that 13 hours. I also felt that the GRS team started to grew on me after a while. There were also some very touching moments at the end of the movie, especially involving Jack and his wife Becky (played by Wrenn Schmidt) in addition to small humor here and there. 

For those who like Michael Bay film, this definitely is a must watched. It feels a little bit different from his other movies, but for sure you would like it. For those who do not like him, I still recommend you to try watching this one. It may change your mind a bit about his movies (though I am not counting on it).

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out 5 stars