Rating of
2/4
Bullets Over Benghazi
Unknown - wrote on 01/17/16
'13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' is Michael Bay's latest attempt at telling a true story. For once, there's no swaying agenda to the political nature of the real incident. Here the focus is just a plain straight-forward retelling of actual events. Though, the overused cliched moments in most heroic efforts of wartime movies eventually come into play close to the end. It felt really forced, especially considering that we know little about the men involved besides some of them having a wife and/or kid at home. I didn't care for these guys due to the overall detachment I had from the overlong setup filled with dull exposition. I honestly almost dozed off before the crap finally hit the fan. The combat never lets up after that. The entire second half is repetitive gunfire minus the investment or tension. A few individual near misses or killings managed a low level of excitement. The rest grew tiresome. Sub-par use of the up close 'shaky cam' technique took up most of the runtime. But, in the final elongated bout, Bay pulls out all of his old tricks. He even recreates exact shots he's used countless times in his other movies, which took me out of the moment that I was already barely hanging onto. Add to that the poor dramatization of 'movie' style war heroics and you have a finale missing the "Hoorah!" it only just intended at the last minute.
