Michael Bay
13 Hours

Michael Bay's war film. It almost sounds like a threat, but the issue is more complicated than it seems. Certainly, 13 Hours is not a great film, also because making war films properly is extremely difficult. It's a film with major flaws and some insights, but perhaps precisely because of its naivety, it initially seems less annoying than others. The comparison is obviously with American Sniper: Eastwood's film posed questions, many, but also gave several answers that many found wrong. In this film, however, far fewer questions are posed, and thus it doesn't even get to postulating answers. Of course, calling this a merit is almost paradoxical, but not entirely.

Eastwood is smart, knows how to zoom out and see things from a distant perspective. But then he trips over somewhat absurd concepts like the metaphor of watchdogs or confuses the soldier Kyle with a hero. Bay is naive and crude, sees everything from an intimately pro-American perspective and doesn't really consider many problems. The concept of being able to shoot in response to a threat is not even remotely problematized, for example. However, his simple reading of things also avoids some much more serious pitfalls, like making metaphors about the role of world guardian that America arrogates to itself. This doesn't mean that Bay doesn't think it; he simply doesn't reveal it in his film. Paradoxically, the director's limitations partly save him from further pitfalls. Bay analyzes things by taking the issues of legitimacy for granted. The USA is in Libya, period; reasoning starts from that fact. The issues addressed (or rather, sketched) are essentially two: the difficulty in distinguishing between friends and enemies on one hand, and the rift between political and military parts within the American camp on the other.

Two good insights, which, if we will, are crumbs in the face of enormous American contradictions. Just to name a few: entire hordes of Libyans die, and it's all fine, as if they were zombies; an American dies, and the lament begins, slow motion, blurred images, and touching music. It's a rhetoric hard to accept. There's not even a mention of a discussion on why they stayed in Libya when all the other embassies left. These are issues that Bay doesn't even touch. But at least he doesn't try to justify his nation either. Perhaps because he doesn't feel the need to do so.

It's hard to say which of the two approaches is better; but all in all, upon reflection, one arrives at the conclusion that Bay, even without emphasizing them, advocates the same highly questionable American principles as Eastwood. So better American Sniper, which has the courage to expose the American world view, than a sly film like this one, which, even without saying it openly, is as American to the core as the other. At least Clint faces the moral doubt that killing a child is wrong even if he represents a military threat: then one can discuss the response, but Bay seems instead to use the threshold of legitimate defense as a pretext to allow his little soldiers to riddle anything that moves. American Sniper infuriates more at the moment, but it is honest and full of doubts; this one is sly, subtle, but ultimately even more patriotic.

For the rest, the film is really excessively lengthy in the part concerning the shootings. I think there's about an hour and a half of almost uninterrupted rat-a-tat. Characters are barely developed and without significant psychological problems; dialogues are technically precise enough but also quite heavy and eventually a bit tiresome. In terms of tone, Bay doesn't seem to have improved, the epic is the same as always, and indeed the doses of lightness are definitely less than usual. A pretty heavy film even for fans of the genre. There's some hint of irony, but it's overshadowed by the many rhetorical moments with soldiers calling their families or looking at pictures of their children. Perhaps the only non-negative note is, surprisingly, about the direction and editing. Although still far from calm, there's a certain slowdown in the change of shots and a tentative effort to build segments that last more than a second, maybe even with some minimal camera movements. But on the other hand, the dynamite charge of Bay's cinema is decidedly toned down.