It’s hard to separate the politics from this movie and assess it purely on the merits of how the story is being told. The depiction of the true story of a group of six contractors who protected a covert CIA compound in Libya in 2012, is aimed squarely at right-wing middle-America. The men are all heroic figures, family men who love their wives and kids. The villains are the bureaucrats trying to follow procedure rather than let them do their killing thing, and, of course, the Libyans who are depicted entirely as crazed killers. Also, this being a Michael Bay film, the women are side lined, being either distant waiting wives or moaning CIA agents putting the men in danger. At least he didn’t find a role for Megan Fox!
Putting all that to one side, the build up scenes are actually pretty good. Bay depicts the confusion and sense of danger in the streets at what was a turbulent time. There are also some nice throwbacks to films like Rio Bravo and Assault on Precinct 13 in the second part of the film as they are besieged in the compound. Bay does know how to handle action scenes, and I don’t mind the shaky cam, though he does struggle with keeping things totally coherent as 3 of the 6 men look very similar! The love of hardware, guns being loaded and the fetishism of ammunition becomes a bit tiresome though, and the last 10 minutes of sentimental flag waving is almost unbearable.
Before that, the action and pace of the film make this quite watchable, an improvement on his Transformers nonsense, but don’t expect a complex piece on the problems in Libya post the Gaddafi era.
Rating: 5 out of 10