Paramount walks Benghazi tightrope

MIAMI—Press conferences to promote films are usually predictable affairs in which most of the questions are directed at the actors and don’t get much more provocative than “How-was-it-to-work-with-so-and-so.” But it was clear from my first few minutes at Paramount’s event for 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi that the studio’s promotion would take a different turn.

Before last week’s event began, I casually mentioned to a friend in attendance a question I planned to ask. Within minutes, the film’s publicists texted me, suggesting milder wording. Once the director, cast, and other principals filed onto the dais, instead of immediately opening the floor to questions from reporters, as would normally happen, a Paramount representative played the part of interviewer for more than half the 45-minute forum—while we fidgeted. His queries were reminiscent of some of the pre-conference chatter but less pointed. Rather than ask director Michael Bay (best known for Transformers and Armageddon) why he felt compelled to take on a story so weighted down with partisanship, he asked, “What was it about this story that made you think, I need to make this my next movie?”

With National Review predicting the film will hurt Hillary Clinton’s Oval Office aspirations and CNN reporting conservative groups plan to host screenings, you could hardly blame Paramount for hoping to steer the media narrative in a less controversial direction. The needle they must thread—releasing a movie about one of the most politically charged events in recent history during primary season, but not make it about politics—is delicate enough to be worthy of a presidential campaign. And toward the end of the press conference, Bay’s hesitancy to face the paradox head-on made for some ineloquent moments. After he mentioned Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer had lauded his film by saying, “This movie will show whosever in charge to never let this happen again,” I asked Bay how, specifically, the people in charge might do that. His response was something of a word salad.

“I do know that, speaking to different government agencies, they’re trying to make … they’re trying to figure out ways … to … deal with this. So, there you go,” he trailed off.

While he might not be eager to speculate on the policy implications of 13 Hours, Bay clearly hopes it will shed fresh and piercing light on what happened on Sept. 11, 2012. To this end he frequently shifted focus to the real headliners of the press conference. Not The Office’s John Krasinski or any of the other actors, but John “Tig” Tiegen, Mark “Oz” Geist, and Kris “Tanto” Paronto, three of the military contractors who attempted to rescue Ambassador Chris Stevens and his security detail before enduring a six-hour attack on the CIA annex in Libya.

When they weren’t ribbing one another for their status as former Navy SEALS or Army Rangers, the men turned serious about the reason they decided to tell their story first in a book and then in a film based on it: They believed politicians were hijacking their story.

“The way they were doing it was totally dishonoring to the four Americans who died,” Tig said. “They were pretty much dragging their bodies through the streets. In order to get the truth out there, we could have gone to Fox News or CNN, but then it would have just got spun like they spin everything else.”

Tanto hopes the film will have an even bigger impact than the book in changing the public’s perception.

“When people walk out of that theater they’re going to have a totally different view of what Benghazi is, and that’s not the politics of it,” he said. “People forget that over 24 lives were saved that night.”

The brothers-in-arms also were eager to clear up misconceptions about private security contractors, the vast majority of whom are former military.

“Contractors got a black eye when Blackwater happened,” Oz said. “But contractors have been in every military operation since the first one. If you look at your history, George Washington hired a French general to train the militia. They’ve always been a part of our military.”

When asked what separates them from mercenaries, the men kept their cool, but addressed it directly.

“A mercenary is someone who doesn’t care what they’re fighting for or who they’re fighting for. All they’re fighting for is the money,” Tig said. “And they’re on an offensive field. Contractors are more defensive. You’re fighting for your own country and defending your own people for the most part.”

Still, like Bay, they tried to avoid assigning blame as much as possible. When I asked about Clinton’s now infamous response at the Benghazi hearings—“What difference, at this point, does it make?”—Tig came to the former secretary of state’s defense.

“I feel like she got railroaded,” he said. “The media, they take things, and they twist it the wrong way.”

Oz added, “People who mess up or do things wrong, you’ll catch them anyway, you don’t need to make it seem worse than it is. If it was a protest outside the consulate, then why didn’t the state guys hear the protest, why didn’t the local guard force notify them that there was a protest?” He shrugged and left it at that.

But as they stood to leave our interview, Tig quipped that it was really former President George W. Bush’s fault anyway. He and Oz exchanged an insider glance and laughed.

They’re content to let the film speak for itself.

See also Megan Basham’s review: “13 Hours unravels Benghazi‘s murky details.”