13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi, film review: Siege story is demeaned by gung-ho treatment

(15)​ Michael Bay, 144 mins. Starring: John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Max Martini, Toby Stephens

Six-pack attack: John Krasinski stars in Michael Bay’s ‘13 Hours: the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi’

Formidable technique is married to reactionary and simple-minded bombast in Transformers director Michael Bay's action movie about the tragic events at Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 in which US ambassador J Christopher Stevens was killed by Islamic militants. Bay somehow makes this debacle into the story of a siege, pitting heroic, red-blooded American security contractors in matching beards against "them", as their Libyan assailants are styled.

Wave on wave of attacks are unleashed, first on the "temporary diplomatic outpost" where the ambassador is staying, and then on the compound where the CIA agents and security contractors are based. The contractors, the equivalent of Greek warriors but armed with guns rather than swords, stand firm against seemingly overwhelming forces.

An opening montage that includes grim footage of Colonel Gaddafi's death, suggests the filmmakers might pay a little token attention to the politics of the Arab Spring. That isn't the case at all. The contractors call Benghazi "Zombieland." They speak in action-man platitudes. "Those assholes don't know what's coming for them" or "shoot that son of a bitch" are typical lines. Between testosterone-filled action interludes, they FaceTime or Skype their loved ones back home. They're at risk of dying in a "place they don't need to be" in a "country that means nothing" to them, and yet they're still fuelled with the Alamo spirit.

This probably just about passes as a chamber piece for Bay. It's undeniably spectacular in its own juddering, pyrotechnical, Armageddon-ish fashion, but it's also a film that leads a very rancid taste.