Book Trailers: 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened

I was finally able to get to a movie theater this morning so that I could watch 13 Hours: the Secret Soldeirs of Benghazi and I'm happy to report that it is everything I had been told it would be.  It is thrilling, heartbreaking, totally engaging, and most of all, enraging.  Four dead Americans - who by all credible accounts could have been saved - is enraging.

The movie is largely based on Michael Zukoff's book 13 Hours in Benghazi: The Inside Account of What Really Happened.  I usually find that a movie so much simplifies a book that the movie, despite perhaps lacking the depth of the book, is easier to follow than the book from which it's taken.  In this instance, that's not the case.  What happened on the ground in Benghazi is so complicated and has so many moving parts that it takes the pace of a book to keep it all straight in your mind.  The impact of this movie on viewers is more akin to what it must have been like for those fighting for their lives on September 11/12, 2012 - lots of noise, people swarming the streets and grounds, total confusion at times.

Everyone needs to see this movie.  These people should not be forgotten or swept under some political rug during this election year.  (This movie does not overtly point fingers at anyone in Washington D.C., at least by name, although there is a sense of cynicism toward the end that does become a little pointed and obvious.)