Michael Bay’s new action movie is already stirring controversy among government officials and residents of Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and the birthplace of the uprising against long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The Hollywood director’s film, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi, depicts the events of the September 2012 attack on the US consulate that killed four Americans, including the ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
The action thriller, starring James Badge Dale and John Krasinski, is to be released in January 2016.
Based only on the trailer, which has recently made rounds on Libya’s social media, Benghazi locals and officials slammed the Transformers’ director for his unreleased film, calling it an “insult” to the north African nation.
“The people of Benghazi always wanted to be part of the international community,” the foreign ministry spokesman for Libya’s internationally-recognised government, Salah Belnaba, said.
But Bay’s new action flick, he said, sends a message that they are “fanatical and ignorant”.
The film follows a group of ex-military security contractors trying to save American lives in a dusty and hostile Benghazi. The trailer shows the contractors entering the city of Benghazi and quickly turns to shots of explosions, gun-wielding militants, and the Americans suiting up for battle.
“We will not allow the American media to destroy our reputation (using) the film industry,” Benghazi resident Mohamed Kawiri said in a Facebook post shared by hundreds calling for a boycott of the “cheap” movie.
The film portrays the contractors, “who actually failed to secure the ambassador … as heroes,” Libya’s culture and information minister, Omar Gawaari, said.
Gawari said that the director “turned America’s failure to protect its own citizens in a fragile state into a typical action movie all about American heroism”.
Nearly four years after the ousting and death of Gaddafi, Libya is consumed by chaos. The country is split between an internationally-recognised government, which was forced to relocate from Tripoli to Eastern Libya, and a rival government and parliament in Tripoli set up by the Islamist-linked militias that control the capital. In Benghazi, Libyan army forces have been battling armed factions led by Islamic extremist commanders for months.
Despite Bay’s efforts to make the movie “really real” as he put it, Benghazi locals said the new film appears to misrepresent both their city and the events of that night.
“The decor designers got it all wrong. This looks nothing like Benghazi and the building looks nothing like the real consulate,” said Benghazi photographer Mohamed el-Theib.
Others are worried that the film will not show the Libyans who tried to intervene and help as the attacks were taking place.
“It was the Benghazi locals who fought the militias (that stormed the consulate),” said Kawiri, who says he was among the people that carried Stevens out of the flames that consumed the diplomatic compound and helped the US security guards escape that night.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets afterwards to denounce Stevens’ killing.
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