13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2014)

a review by Evan Landon

When I was a kid, way before I got into science fiction or horror, I was really big into Tom Clancy and Richard Marcinko books. Of course, all of the kids these days have first-person shooters like Call of Duty or Overwatch, so they don't really get into books when they can virtually live it out over a gaming console. While there are some benefits to that, it kind of dullens their minds. That being said, just because they might be interested in the subject, the majority of them would never think to even pick up a book about it. However, they would watch a movie like this.

“13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi” is a 2014 historical book based on the September 11th, 2012 attack on an American consulate in Libya. It was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Zuckoff (I hope I said that right), along with the security team members involved in the attack. He also wrote a historical book about Shangri-La that looks pretty decent, but let's not get too far off topic here.

Directed by Michael Bay, this definitely carries the same kind of feel that Bad Boys or The Rock has, but this one almost gives a hallmark to such films as Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down, which has the same sort of gravitas that it even speaks of it twice. John Krasinski continues to be a formidable force as a leading actor in this one, much more in movies like A Quiet Place and less like the American version of The Office where he played a sappy, sad sack in love. That is some good range, actually.

To be fair, the reactions to this movie when it came out was more for the overall theme of the novel itself and the glorification of covert black ops in the middle east. It is easily thrown into the same soup as Lone Survivor or No Easy Day being a factual book conveyed by the soldiers themselves trough the use of a journalist. In movies like this, you barely get a chance to get to know the characters, but that really is par for the course in these types.

As a person who loves horror movies, these are the ones that really dig deeply into the soul, as you are seeing the horrors of man directly in front of you. It is very, very different when you realize what the true menace of warfare and fear is in the certain face of doom that no thing can prepare you for.

I could not take my eyes of it once it started. That is saying something.

4 out of 5