I’ve had enough of this 2012 Alamo bullshit.

13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

(2016)

(SPOILERS) Not The Secret Private Military Contractors of Benghazi, as that might sound dubious in some way, and we wouldn’t anything to undermine their straight-shooting heroism. That, and interrogating the politics of the US presence in Libya, official and unofficial, and involvement in the downfall of Gaddafi (Adam Curtis provides some solid nuggets in his rather sprawling HyperNormalisation), is the furthest thing from Michael Bay’s mind. Indeed, it’s a shame 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi bears the burden of being a tale based on (murky and disputed) facts, as it’s Bay’s most proficient piece of filmmaking in some time.

So, you’re not going to find out what the CIA was actually up to in their Benghazi base (most likely, the dodgiest conclusion you can reach will be the right one). You’ll only be informed that a brave team of ex-military types were there to protect them, and stepped up to the plate, just as soon as they got the go ahead (or before) when the going got bad, but too late for the US Ambassador. There’s no finger pointing at Hillary Clinton – I don’t even recall her name being mentioned – and the only references to the status of Libya come in terms of its deposed leader’s “tyrannical rule” (of whom, he “might have been an evil asshole, but he wasn’t stupid”): nothing about the culpability of those who brought the country to chaos and ruin. But then, you’d be shocked and aghast if such things were revealed in a cinematic exploration by one Michael of Bay, he who related the definitive telling of the US entrance into WWII that was Pearl Harbor.

Heroes, family men: quite simply, thoroughly decent eggs who are looking forward to getting home to see their precious wee bairns. Why, John Krasinski plays one of them (not a precious wee bairn, although he may as well be), absurdly so, since despite some ridiculously-toned abs, he only ever looks entirely miscast (he probably wanted some of buddy Matt Damon’s action cred). On the other hand, James Badge Dale, and particularly Pablo Schreiber, bring their A-games, and whatever dramatic integrity this has going for it is predominately down to them (the latter’s thorough confusion as to who may be friend or foe is very amusing, and wholly believable).

Certainly, while Bay martials the mayhem and explosions with profound technical skill, a gritty, sensitively-nuanced telling this is not. It’s always entirely evident that this is the same director that brought us Bad Boys 2, from the staging and slow motion to the musical cues, triumphant emotionalism and rousing derring do (and the propulsive car chase). This isn’t, basically, a million miles from Rambo: First Blood Part II when it comes to professing to pay respect to those in the armed forces, just with a director who isn’t George Pan Cosmatos and even more irresponsible since it purports to be factual. I suppose you could say, in its favour, that unlike Zero Dark Thirty, no one is going to foolishly mistake 13 Hours for being realistic. When one of the characters comments, “He died in a place he didn’t need to be in a battle he didn’t understand In a country that meant nothing to him” you could substitute “Bay directed a movie” for the first two words and have a fairly accurate description of the content.

He even has the temerity (or rather, screenwriter Chuck Hogan does) to have one of the leads instruct faithful interpreter Amahl (Peyman Moaadi, the only personified Libyan in the picture), “Your country’s got to figure this shit out”. Yes… Still, Bay ensures the gung-ho spirit lives on in his characters, who read Joseph Campbell – I wonder if Bay ever has – aloud (“All the Gods, All the Heavens, All the Hells are within you”), who mouth banalities (“It’s been fun, right?”) and who announce, manfully, “I walked into this country. I’m walking out”. Which is still better than Alexia Barlier’s token female, who gets to continually ask “How can I help?”) Bay may be a more technically proficient director than an unending stream of Transformers movies would warrant, but if this is what he turns himself to on his days off, he’d best stick to that particular sandpit. Safer for everyone.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

You’re never the same man twice.

The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970)
(SPOILERS) Roger Moore playing dual roles? It sounds like an unintentionally amusing prospect for audiences accustomed to the actor’s “Raise an eyebrow” method of acting. Consequently, this post-Saint pre-Bond role (in which he does offer some notable eyebrow acting) is more of a curiosity for the quality of Sir Rog’s performance than the out-there premise that can’t quite sustain the picture’s running time. It is telling that the same story was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents 15 years earlier, since the uncanny idea at its core feels like a much better fit for a trim 50 minute anthology series.

Basil Dearden directs, and co-adapted the screenplay from Anthony Armstrong’s novel The Strange Case of Mr Pelham. Dearden started out with Ealing, helming several Will Hay pictures and a segment of Dead of Night (one might imagine a shortened version of this tale ending up there, or in any of the portmanteau horrors that arrived in the year…

Rejoice! The broken are the more evolved. Rejoice.

Split (2016)
(SPOILERS) M Night Shyamalan went from the toast of twist-based filmmaking to a one-trick pony to the object of abject ridicule in the space of only a couple of pictures: quite a feat. Along the way, I’ve managed to miss several of his pictures, including his last, The Visit, regarded as something of a re-locating of his footing in the low budget horror arena. Split continues that genre readjustment, another Blumhouse production, one that also manages to bridge the gap with the fare that made him famous. But it’s a thematically uneasy film, marrying shlock and serious subject matter in ways that don’t always quite gel.

Shyamalan has seized on a horror staple – nubile teenage girls in peril, prey to a psychotic antagonist – and, no doubt with the best intentions, attempted to warp it. But, in so doing, he has dragged in themes and threads from other, more meritable fare, with the consequence that, in the end, the conflicting positions rather subvert his attempts at subversion…

‘Cos I’m the gringo who always delivers.

American Made (2017)
(SPOILERS) This is definitely more the sort of thing Tom Cruise should be doing, a movie that relies both on his boyish™ charm and at least has pretensions of ever so slightly pushing the envelope of standard multiplex fare, rather than desperately attaching himself to an impersonal franchise (The Mummy) or flailingly attempting to kick start one (Jack Reacher: Never Go Back); remember when Cruise wouldn’t even go near sequels (for about 20 years, The Color of Money aside, and then only the one series)? American Made is still victim to the tendency of his movies to feel superstar-fitted rather than remaining as punchy as they might be on paper (Made’s never quite as satirically sharp as it wants to be), but it at least doesn’t lead its audience by the nose.

Two hundred thousand pounds, for this outstanding example of British pulchritude and learning.

The Avengers 4.18: The Girl From Auntie
I’ve mentioned that a few of these episodes have changed in my appreciation since I last watched the series, and The Girl from Auntie constitutes a very pronounced uptick. Indeed, I don’t know how I failed to rate highly the estimable Liz Fraser filling in for Diana Rigg – mostly absent, on holiday –for the proceedings (taking a not dissimilar amateur impostor-cum-sidekick role to Fenella Fielding in the earlier The Charmers). I could watch Fraser all day, and it’s only a shame this was her single appearance in the show.

By Jove, the natives are restless tonight.

The Avengers 4.17: Small Game for Big Hunters
I wonder if Death at Bargain Prices’ camping scene, suggestive of an exotic clime but based in a department store, was an inspiration for Small Game For Big Hunters’ more protracted excursion to the African country of Kalaya… in Hertfordshire. Gerry O’Hara, in his second of two episodes for the show again delivers on the atmosphere, making the most of Philip Levene’s teleplay.

Old Boggy walks on Lammas Eve.

Jeeves and Wooster 2.5: Kidnapped (aka The Mysterious Stranger)
Kidnapped continues the saga of Chuffnell Hall. Having said of 2.4 that the best Wodehouse adaptations tend to stick closely to the text, this one is an exception that proves the rule, diverging significantly yet still scoring with its highly preposterous additions.

Jeeves: Tis old boggy. He be abroad tonight. He be heading for the railway station.
Gone are many of the imbroglios involving Stoker and Glossop (the estimable Roger Brierley), including the contesting of the former’s uncle’s will. Also gone, sadly, is the inebriated Brinkley throwing potatoes at Stoker, which surely would have been enormous fun. Instead, we concentrate on Bertie being locked aboard Stoker’s yacht in order to secure his marriage to Pauline (as per the novel), Chuffy tailing Pauline in disguise (so there’s a different/additional reason for Stoker to believe Bertie and she spent the night together, this time at a pub en route to Chufnell Hall) and …

I think we’ve returned to Eden. Surely this is how the World once was in the beginning of time.

1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
Ridley Scott’s first historical epic (The Duellists was his first historical, and his first feature, but hardly an epic) is also one of his least remembered films. It bombed at the box office (as did the year’s other attempted cash-ins on the discovery of America, including Superman: The Movie producers the Salkinds’ Christopher Columbus: The Discovery) and met with a less than rapturous response from critics. Such shunning is undeserved, as 1492: Conquest of Paradise is a richer and more thought-provoking experience than both the avowedly lowbrow Gladiator and the re-evaluated-but-still-so-so director’s cut of Kingdom of Heaven. It may stand guilty of presenting an overly sympathetic portrait of Columbus, but it isn’t shy about pressing a critical stance on his legacy.

Sanchez: The truth is, that he now presides over a state of chaos, of degradation, and of madness. From the beginning, Columbus proved himself completely incapable of ruling these islands…

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog