With 13 Hours, Michael Bay continues his tribute to American patriotism

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The inelegantly successful director Michael Bay, famous for things-go-boom buddy-cop comedies and whiz-bang blockbusters involving giant mutable toys for boys, has turned to a grimly, serious and true story with 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. But for him, this isn't a transformation – it is a fascination, if not an obsession. He's always been something of a grown-up kid playing big-budget war.

With his four Transformers films, the 50-year-old director has made Hasbro happy and made billions for his studio bosses. Over the years, Bay's gung has always been ho, and many of his films (even in the Transformers franchise) portray troops as butt-kicking superheroes. His tight relationship with U.S. armed forces officials, who approve of the director's war-y glorification, has earned him discounted use of military equipment, along with on-set advice from officers on war-theatre realism. In short, the dude uses bombs, but doesn't make them.

But he is, infamously, reviled by critics – for a lack of imagination, for his disregard of proper storytelling, for his ungainly brashness. Roger Ebert, for example, attacked Bay's Pearl Harbor nonsense from 2001 like a dive bomber onto a battleship: "Its centrepiece is 40 minutes of redundant special effects, surrounded by a love story of stunning banality. The film has been directed without grace, vision or originality, and although you may walk out quoting lines of dialogue, it will not be because you admire them."

Released Friday, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi chronicles a half-day of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. The titular covert soldiers are the half-dozen American CIA contractors who defended the outpost from Libyan militants. Among the Americans killed were an ambassador and two former Navy SEALs.

In Pearl Harbor, a love triangle between characters portrayed by the camera-ready likes of Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale is complicated by an invasion. The historic sneak attack is put into context by the dewy Beckinsale's nurse Rafe, who earnestly delivers this doozy: "I'm gonna give Danny my whole heart, but I don't think I'll ever look at another sunset without thinking of you."

They don't make dames like nurse Rafe any longer, or at least Bay doesn't. Based on a 2013 book by Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours is total testosterone and military machismo, with American Sniper moments of call-of-duty mindsets and Southern-drawl scenes of families on the home front. Stars and Stripes fly, explosions happen and beards are everywhere.

In 2007, Bay bemoaned the difficulties involved with the Transformers movies. "It's a bitch working with robots," he told Details magazine. "Ten thousand moving parts and you have to make them … emote." Well, he did have practice in that regard, what with Hartnett in Pearl Harbor.

A few years later, though, he explained his passport status and philosophy to GQ: "I'm, like, a true American." As if there was any doubt.

America loves a hero, the more embattled the better. Now, with 13 Hours, Bay – dubbed the "people's pyromaniac" by The Guardian – faces the impending assault of critics. "Some directors will cower, but I don't take shit," Bay once said, possibly referring to his standing up to Armageddon star Bruce Willis but probably to his chin-up attitude in the face of haters.

So, let them come. "I'm not aware of any friendlies," a voice on the walkie-talkie says in 13 Hours. And Bay knows the feeling.