On Monday night, I saw about 25 minutes of Michael Bay’s new film, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, which chronicles the politically charged events of the 2012 Benghazi attack in Libya. Three survivors from that day were in attendance and, before the footage, gave solemn remarks about their experience and how this film isn’t a political statement. The remarks were extremely heartfelt.
Having said that, and from what you’ll be able to gather from the new red band trailer, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi is not going to be a Michael Bay meditation on what was the worst day of all these peoples’ lives. It looks very much like a Michael Bay movie. There are explosions and, well, everything else that makes Michael Bay Michael Bay. And, considering the still ongoing politicization of these events, obviously this movie will not be able to avoid being polarizing or controversial.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi stars John Krasinski as Jack Da Silva and James Badge Dale as Tyrone S. Woods, and leads us through the actual events of that day… in quite possibly the most amped, hyper-stylized way possible.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi will be released in theaters on Jan. 15, 2016.
Mike Ryan lives in New York City and has written for The Huffington Post, Wired, Vanity Fair and New York magazine. He is senior entertainment writer at Uproxx. You can contact him directly on Twitter.
