When everything went wrong, six men had the courage to do what was right. That’s the logline adorning the new poster for Michael Bay’s high-profile thriller 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, and you’ll likely unearth more plot from that sole sentence than the bombastic new trailers that graced the interwebs today.
Delving into the violent and murky tragedies that unfolded in Benghazi, Libya circa 2012, Bay’s high-octane thriller harbors all of the potential to become a true and gripping dramatic powerhouse, but if anything, today’s clips drive home the point that the director’s actioner will release as a short-sighted action flick that merely scratches the surface of what is such an important and divisive event in American history.
Leading the charge for 13 Hours is John Krasinski, who commands an elite security team tasked with defending a US diplomatic compound in Libya. What the matinee story seems to skirt around, however, is the context of why the soldiers were under siege in the first place, and why the “unfriendlies” took umbrage with their presence in their native country.
Taking inspiration from Mitchell Zuckoff’s eye-opening novel, Bay’s rendition of 13 Hours is nothing if noting spectacular. Indeed, prior to the release of today’s all-new trailers, Krasinski revealed some insightful details regarding the rip-roaring special effects, and why the director wanted to ensure the action – perhaps more so than any other element – was rooted in realism. “I think there’s a lot of stuff in this movie that people might actually watch and say, ‘Oh, that’s fake. That’s CGI.’ That’s all real,” he revealed.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is slated for a release on January 15, 2016.
