Act Of Valor

Feb 13, 2012 by

Movie Review

I’m going to cut through all of the BS and get right to the review as I feel those in the Special Operations community would and probably are doing right now. I went to see Act of Valor expecting to see an action movie and it delivered. The movie was frankly fantastic if you went in there wanting an action movie played by guys who actually do this for a living. The acting was mediocre at best from the SEALs (It wasn’t horrible and I suspect some will make their way to Hollywood after they leave the teams) but I wasn’t expecting Brad Pitt or the like, I was expecting the real thing and the movie felt authentic. That’s what mattered to me. You didn’t see ridiculous stunts, guys going full auto for a minute and a half with one thirty round magazine and they didn’t make a huge deal out of the small stuff (SPOILER: Like a wounded comrade). Also I enjoyed seeing the integration of technology like drones and such rather than just a straight Rambo style film. Again it was done by the real men during real training missions. My favorite scene of the entire movie is when the SWCC (Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen) boats roll in hot to extract the members of the team and suppress the enemy forces who were in pursuit. It got my adrenaline pumping and made me think “fuck yea! Get some!” The true actors in the film delivered on their parts and brought the film up to 5 out of 5 stars in my opinion. The plot was easy to follow and seemed quite possible from a post 9/11 standpoint. I found the ending rather sad and it reminds you that these men are not immortal and their sacrifices are huge even though their sacrifices are largely unknown. I highly recommend this movie.
Have you longed for an action movie that didn’t have cheesy sound effects and actors who looked like they just learned to shoot yesterday? Do you frequently watch war movies and pay great attention to the errors made by the actors? If you want a war movie to be as real as it can be then Act of Valor is for you. I am admittedly very excited about this movie because not only does it feature active duty Navy SEALs but the SEALs were instrumental in making sure everything looked right and wasn’t faked. Their attention to detail means that you won’t see M4 dust covers in the up position while brass is somehow flying out, slapping of magazines in while being sneaky, looking awkward in body armor and the best part is you’ll know that these guys are capable of or have already done everything you see in the movie.

The movie is no doubt a great recruiting ploy by the Navy, who has given the movie the green light, but no one really cares about that. The only thing we care about is that we are finally going to get an action movie similar to Black Hawk Down except this one will be a little more upbeat than the failed raid and you won’t see Josh Hartnett running around nor Tom Sizemore trying not to have a stroke. The producers of Act of Valor approached the Navy in 2006 and asked to be allowed to shoot a movie about the SEALs and “the Naval Special Warfare community said, ‘Oh my gosh, how do we do this?’” says Army Lt. Col. Jim Gregory, a Pentagon spokesman. The military decided that it would be best to film the movie during training exercises at home that way their SEALs were thousands of miles away from any war zone. That, along with the Navy’s requirement that no training be staged, is why it took 6 years to make the movie. The SEALs would deploy and when they returned they would pick up on filming the movie again.

There will be some who fear that this is far too much publicity for the Navy SEALs who’re meant to be invisible until they snap your neck but for those of us who have cried for a “real” action movie without going through BUD/S this is perfect. The movie comes out next Friday to theaters everywhere and is sure to put a smile on your face if you like macho men, guns and explosions.

Register To Comment

Related Posts

Tags

Share This

2 Comments

  1. poppy
    February 15, 2012

    I’m looking forward to seeing this movie. Sounds like the realism and attention to detail will make this a great flick.

    Reply
    • admin
      February 16, 2012

      I’m very excited about it too, so excited in fact that I didn’t get the date right. It comes out next Friday instead of this Friday.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>