13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Last Sunday my wife and I caught the matinee performance of 13 Hours. As a war movie buff it reminded me of Black Hawk Down. It shares a lot of the same themes and is action packed. Although my wife and I liked the movie, it is not without its detractors. Washington Post columnist Ann Hornaday complains that the movie is political and then spends most of her movie review contrasting it with the recent Iran prisoner swap. I guess she misses the point that when the consulate is under attack, political negotiations like the Iran prisoner swap are no longer an option. When the security guards ran away during the firefight at the consulate, you are officially in the soldier’s world and that is what the movie is about.  The writers at Hot Air were not impressed with her “political” argument either. Surprisingly I found the movie to be less political than I expected. If the movie included a cameo of either the President or the Secretary of State asleep during the battle or Susan Rice on the talk shows blaming a movie for the consulate attack, it would have strayed from the script and become political. Instead it focused on the courage of six men to save the Ambassador and his staff despite a lack of State Department and military support.