Act of Valor is an enjoyable, unique, taut action movie

Act of Valor is an action film that features active duty Navy SEALs.  I had been following the previews and press for the film ever since I heard about its production.  Yeah, it could be a gimmicky thing to cast real Navy SEALs instead of actors, but the action that they showed in the trailers looked very tight.  While not perfect, Act of Valor was entertaining and authentic.

The plot is woven together from five real situations that the SEALs experienced.  A CIA operative is kidnapped while trying to learn information about a drug smuggler.  It turns out this drug smuggler is a partner with a jihadist who wants to kill Americans.   They’re plan is to smuggle people through a tunnel from Mexico to the U.S where these suicide bombers will create panic and hurt the worldwide economy.  As you can see the plot is based in fantasy land.

Obviously I’m joking.  The plot is a big giveaway that this is not your ordinary Hollywood action movie.  If the movie were coming from Hollywood the villains would still be Nazis and the hero would realize that we’re all citizens of the world.

The plot is based in real life.  The battle scenes were filmed during live SEAL training missions, using live ammunition.  Act of Valor is often filmed from a helmet mounted camera that gives the viewer a sense of taut panic as to what’s happening next.  Production for the movie took two years because the SEALs were active duty and had to juggle filming between their deployments.  The movie is also very violent, bloody and ripe with coarse language; it’s rated R and rightly so.

War porn, NAVY recruitment tool or entertainment?

The movie is packed with U.S. patriotism without directly saying ‘Go USA’.  Because of that many critics have called it a recruitment tool for the Navy.  The Navy did assist greatly with the production of the film and had the final say on what went into the film.  Producers were looking for a realistic, gritty film that showed what SEALs do and not something that was glossed over.

It’s not war porn because the military technology isn’t displayed like Q does in a James Bond movie.

Act of Valor is a refreshing action/war movie.  It’s more realistic than many movies in the genre and that’s a good thing.  There were no CGI shots in Act of Valor and that was very refreshing to see.

The acting was a bit stilted at times, but it was all very real, sometimes feeling like a film class.  Did it just seem stilted to me because the lines were being said ‘pretty’ people?  Act of War isn’t a character driven movie with lots of dialogue, it’s action oriented and it delivers, call it what you want.