13 Hours (2016)

What did I know about 13 Hours before watching it? Not too much to be honest but more than most. I knew that it was based on a true story about American soldiers in Benghazi. I knew that there was some sort of crisis but I do now know what it was specifically. I knew that it starred John Krasinski and was directed by Michael Bay. It has received an Oscar nomination for just sound mixing, not one of the most prestigious awards but still something. I went into this film with almost no expectations for what it would be. I assumed it would be similar to Black Hawk Down because of the two films’ content. Other than this, I knew nothing about the film and didn’t think much of it overall, but I jumped in anyway.

This was not a powerful film. It had little to no emotional impact on me and that is annoying. I could barely pay attention to what was on screen because I was so disinterested in the story. Firstly, the question I want to ask is: why this protagonist? The John Krasinski character, called Jack, was the person we primarily followed through the story. But, why? Jack joined the team a tiny bit later than the rest of his team but was caught up by the time of any key events. He was not an inexperienced ‘fish out of water’ but he also wasn’t the aged master of special forces. Bay couldn’t have decided to follow him because he survived as a lot more other people in the primary cast survived. We didn’t follow him because he had a family as most of the characters had families too. This confused me totally. Have a look at most other films and ask yourself, why are we following this person? Usually, it is because they are an underdog, or they are being oppressed, or they are in a new world, or even if they just are exceptionally average but always will there be a reason to follow a hero. Not in this film and it made for a weak hook and a weak protagonist. Also, a major point in this film for me was the poor writing of expository dialogue(screenplay by Chuck Hogan). Very rarely did a conversation feel real. Let’s talk about the first scene where we see Jack(Krasinski) reunites with an old friend, Rone(James Badge Dale). The conversation consists of “How are the kids?”, “can you believe my daughter is [insert age here]” and “is Becky still mad at me for bringing you back into [instert profession here]”. This dialogue, no matter how well acted, just isn’t believable. It is overwhelmingly obvious to audiences that the characters are speaking to them and not to each other. While on the subject of the screenplay, there were so many ‘eye-roll’ moments. One of the many examples of this that I can think of was when Rone said into his walkie talkie “what’s the chief’s number one rule?” He immediately establishes the rule he will break literally a second later, this is just lazy. What’s wrong with trying to establish a big important rule a scene or two before it becomes relevant, it makes the audience feel engaged because they have to remember the rules and get worried for the character that breaks them. However, that moment was done like this and there is no emotional pay-off for that line like there could have been.

There were not many shining lights in this film that I could mention. Perhaps I could speak of the camera work because, during set pieces, there were some lovely shots. Of course, because it was directed by Michael Bay, this film had slow motion and explosions in abundance, but not to the extent to which it would become unrealistic. In fact, certain shots within the set pieces are well constructed, even if the rest of them were filled with either shaky cam or just an explosion filling the frame. With the occasional beauty shot, I could not tell what was happening, where each character was and more. Some people may argue that this is to encourage the feeling of disorientation, anxiety and fear. However, I would counter this by saying that it isn’t worth it if no one knows what is happening to the characters we are supposed to be relating to. It was forced chaos and it isn’t well received because it is extremely difficult to comprehend without breaking down each shot. This is just another disappointment. Not every performance was as poor as the filmmaking. For example, I quite enjoyed the acting from Peyman Moaadi, Alexia Barlier, David Denman, Pablo Schreiber and Demetrius Grosse. These actors helped the film a little bit but couldn’t save it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the biggest fan of John Krasinski‘s acting in this film. He often overacted his lines (ignoring how poorly they were written) and I didn’t like too much of what he did despite me going in with a bias for his acting (because of the US The Office). However, this perception I have of his acting could be because of the bad writing that 13 hours had. Another point I could argue for the positives of this film is the documentary ending. I appreciate when filmmakers let us know what happened to the characters we followed. It is a slight payoff for watching a real story. However, I have seen this done better from films made last year, such as Hidden Figures(Review) and Hacksaw Ridge(Review). Perhaps I feel like this because these films were more focused in who they told us about whereas 13 Hours told us about each person in the team when most of them had similar endings.

There was just a lot of wasted scenes in this where the audience either was receiving obvious exposition or not learning anything at all. I really wanted to like this film but it had too much wrong to ignore, from writing to performances to cinematography. I am desperately trying to think of more things I liked about the film but unfortunately, I only think of more negatives which worsens my perception of the film. The film just didn’t feel whole at all, by the end, I didn’t feel like I knew the characters at all because all or most of the exposition shoved down our throats was about the events and we do not connect to the events. I wish I could write more about it.

Over, this is not a good film. It lacks the writing that creates bad acting which creates weak characters which creates a boring story which makes me write this about it. I would only recommend this film to action/war film junkies that do not really have standards when it comes to films but love explosive sequences. It is so easy to look at war films that have full character and a good story as well as the action sequences to match. This film has taught me a lot about expository dialogue and how it should be continuously subtle throughout. Also, I realised how screentime can be so easily wasted with the wrong information that could seem important on paper but really does not keep the audience interested. So I guess that this film has this useful information that avid upcoming filmmakers could learn from.