13 Hours: The Secrets Soliders of Benghazi may, or may not be, a political film – and that entirely depends on your own interpretation or inclinations towards the (mostly true!) events that took place in Libya in 2012. When Islamic militants attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, they killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith. There were the first such deaths of U.S. Ambassadors since 1979, and that’s not exactly a positive picture of world affairs by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, depending on your political affiliations, you either think 1. it’s a grand injustice and Hilary Clinton should go to jail or 2. you just don’t really care, and don’t see how this attack could have been prevented.
Unsurprisingly, Michael Bay doesn’t really bother to take a position either way on what he feels about the attack itself – rather, he would rather tell the story that the book 13 Hours portrays, which is mostly that of soldiers in the line of duty (or “unofficial” soldiers, as the case was, if we’re honest). This is a surprisingly straightforward movie with an actual plot, and while much of it is procedural in nature, it’s a rather harrowing war thriller in any event. Even more surprisingly is the lack of the incoherence typical to Bay’s more recent work (and by recent work, I only mean Transformers); I’d call it pretty restrained by his standards, and whether that’s due to the “true story” nature of the film is up for debate.
I guess that’s what makes this film ride the fence a little bit. I get that Bay doesn’t want to diminish the lives that were lost on September 11, 2012, or turn the events into a political statement of some sort. But that’s exactly what could make 13 Hours a much better film than simply a walkthrough of events that were repeated hundreds and hundreds of times on Fox News. The movie’s entertaining – perhaps frustrating, if you thought that the U.S. government should step in and bomb everybody – but it lacks any sense of position or character. 144 minutes of pure fact does not turn into an interesting movie by political environment or otherwise, and that’s something 13 Hours lacks in retrospect.
In effect, your opinions about the Benghazi attacks coming into the film – assuming you had one – would be the same one you have coming out. And that’s a bit of a shame, because this is a competent, and visually interesting, film to watch. If you don’t like Bay films, you’d be surprised by this one! But, you won’t really remember much of it beyond your own opinions held in advance, and that’s a shame.
Zoolander 2 tries to continue the strange, bizarre universe of the original Zoolander with mixed success. A cult film if there ever was one, Zoolander told the story of the world’s hippest fashion model – Derek Zoolander, originator of the “Blue Steel” look and king of the fashion world. Also, there was a convoluted plot about killing the prime minister of Malaysia using really, really good looking models. Zoolander was a product of its time, when society as a whole thought that laughing at the fashion industry’s absurdities (and adding more crazy stuff on top) was actually OK!
But, unfortunately, that same surreal PG-13 comedy simply didn’t translate to the year 2016, at all, at least from a box office receipts perspective. As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and its attempts to make me laugh in the many offensive ways it does. Is the film stupid? Only about as stupid as the original movie. Some people hate celebrity cameos, but I though the vast majority of them were well done here (Kiefer Sutherland and Benedict Cumberbatch stand out as my obvious favorites). And, I always like Will Ferrell acting like an insane person (especially with that wig!).
But, really, there’s just not much to say about this film. PG-13 comedy seems like a lost art, as the continual release of R-rated films in the same genre removed the need for subtlety, innuendo, and tact. This might not be the best one I’ve seen, but it’s certainly a perversely entertaining bit of cinema if you turn your brain off for a while – sometimes, that’s all you need.
