13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

It's a shame that some of the sympathetic believable bearded men end up being so interchangeable in the chaos, though the film's opening takes quite a bit of care to introduce them as best it can. It's the only thing that bothered me about 13 Hours. But on the other hand, it is quite possible that when I see the film on DVD, I will be able to tell one from the other more easily and it will only improve the film. Michael Bay surprised me - the film is not that pathetic (by his standards!), the action is not overdone and the wait for it is really exciting. The script can afford to let the characters say lines like "It's like Black Hawk Down!" without sounding ridiculous, and the director can use a trick mortar shell flight to refer to the dropping of the Japanese bomb in Pearl Harbor... I hardly noticed the runtime, there was always something going on and everything was in moderation. In short, more than a good film. (06/02/2016)

Black Hawk down for good. After watching the murderous footage and a more than thorough introduction, it is clear that this is a dream project, whose author was unrestrained and thus able to fulfil his greatest wishes. And although the motivational speeches or threats about dead Americans bring to mind Pearl Harbor with their quantity, it only slightly diminishes the experience. When it comes down to it, Grade AAA Action comes to the forefront, proving that Michael Bay simply never gets old, but matures in his own way. Every salvo or explosion surpasses everything you could possibly see in the genre with its dynamism, and the increasing fear for the main characters drives towards an overheated and even more exhaustively satisfying finale for the audience. (03/02/2016)

Michael Bay is a commercial filmmaker with a great grasp of basic genre scales and practices, but he cannot naturalise all the events, including the action sequences, and give them a fatal, physically painful feel. 13 Hours is a prototype of a good action flick, but it desperately lacks any innovative impulse that would elevate it to the category of excellent – the protagonist is presented using the most profane clichés and his only motivation is traditionally to return to his wife and small daughters, while the other players in the story are nothing but passer-bys, hard to tell from one another thanks to identical physical parameters in the action turmoil. The basic plot is plumped up by the annoying figure of the irrational boss, who only acts expediently to further escalate the situation, and finally the action itself doesn't make you completely surrender to it and forget everything else. We can praise the fast pace, thanks to which the runtime doesn't feel excessive, and the opening documentary passage and the related depiction of Benghazi as a real hell on earth, where killing is the order of the day. It's a more sincere and effective film than the disparate Pearl Harbor, but still too contrived and lacking in intensity, a stale looser compared to Black Hawk Down. 60% (30/05/2016)

I wonder what the Americans would make films about if they weren't constantly spreading democracy everywhere. I can’t wait to see an action-packed film about returning stolen land to Indian tribes. But back to the film. The fight scenes are shot well – I especially liked the sequence with the mine à la first-person action. Unfortunately, the film is ruined by E.T.-call-home-type scenes. One of the final lines "I don't know how you survived all that. But I know how the rest of us did" almost made me throw up in my mouth a little. As usual, a giant dose of patriotism and pathos, but I’m sure the film is a huge success on the home front. (11/07/2016)

Considering it's Michael Bay, it's actually pretty good. I don't have confidence in him, but it's obvious that he's really interested in war and war films, so he knows how to make them. At the end, there are emotions again, which, on the other hand, it doesn't handle well at all, but the choice of actors, who aren't that well-known, was a good decision and gives the film a good look. (27/05/2016)