The attack on the US embassy in Benghazi is a much talked about event in Washington DC these days, and it’s about to become a major event in movie theaters as well. Michael Bay’s action thriller about the men who came to the rescue of those in the embassy has released its red band trailer and it makes the movie look suitably intense and full of Michael Bay action. Be aware this trailer has language and violence that you don’t normally find in movie trailers. While the subject matter certainly has that "ripped from the headlines" feel, the trailer makes 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi look like it will mostly steer clear of the politics. There’s somebody telling the soldiers not to go in to help -- for some, not explained in the trailer, reason. Instead, it looks like it will focus on the team of men who go in to attempt an impromptu rescue of the embassy workers. If it weren’t for the fact that the attack actually happened, the trailer would look more like a sequel to Michael Bay's The Rock than anything based on a true story. As it is, the movie that 13 Hours is likely to be compared to is Michael Bay’s other historical action movie, Pearl Harbor. That one was... less than historically accurate, to say the least. With the events of this one still being fresh in the public’s mind, expect to it be used as a political football regardless of how political the film actually tries to be. This a Michael Bay movie after all. The man makes movies to make guns go off and have things explode. That’s the point. If anything, 13 Hours looks to be a return to Bay’s pre- Transformers days that were still full of guns and explosions but dialed back on the CGI spectacle. Pearl Harbor was a terrible historical epic, but the setting worked for the straight-up action movie the man was trying to create. If that’s what we’re going to get here, and that’s the kind of movie you want to see, there are worse things in the world you could watch. We will give the trailer some credit. John Krasinski looks sufficiently like an a serious threat and not at all like the bumbling character from The Office, so the movie looks to succeed on that front, if nothing else. We’re still a couple months out from the release of 13 Hours, so maybe it will make for a good palate cleanser after you’ve seen The Force Awakens four or five times. A gold old fashioned action movie from the guy who made fun ones once upon a time.
