SPOILERS DOWN THE PATH; THE DISCUSSION BELOW WILL NOT BE COMPREHENSIVE WITHOUT IT.
TREAD CAREFULLY. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.
Michael Bay's 13 Hours is a war turf action drama which provides pretty much everything you would expect from the director: high contrast colors, cocky dialogues, cheesy Dutch angles, shaky cams and mindless explosions. But, it is in this film you can't help but notice the filmmaker has definitely dialed it down.
With okay characters of expert soldiers used merely as chauffeurs for CIA agents, 13 Hours tells the true story of these underdogs saving the day when a pressing situation emerges, in a typical Michael Bay testosterone-fueled fashion. You do get to see some choking scenarios such as the smoke-filled chamber struggle and thriller differentiating friendlies or enemies. Jack Silva's (John Krasinski) spouse announcing pregnancy through a video chat while weeping and the rooftop operation squad spotting Tangos are scenes that will tap your heart a little. The casting of John Krasinski and James Badge Dale as partners is nice.
However, watching 2 hours plus of non-stop gun-shooting is undeniably monotonous without any crests and troughs. The fairly bloated runtime fails to arrive at the point succinctly. With dialogue repetitions, swapping interchanges of camera types and too many characters, this is a feature that's long drawn out than it's ever needed to be.