Act of Valor

As promised Bleed Geek: Movies is back with our second review, this time for the new action film Act of Valor.  From the moment I saw the first trailer for this movie I became very interested in seeing Act of Valor because of the films main gimmick… that the major roles are played by actual active duty Navy SEALs.

The movie follows a team of Navy SEALs as they hunt down a terrorist cell lead by Ukrainian Abu Shabal, who has been training suicide bombers to use in attacks against the US.  The hunt takes the SEALs around the globe as they embark on different missions that lead them closer and closer to their target.  The team first learns about this terrorist cell while rescuing a captured CIA operative (played by Rosalyn Sanchez) from Columbia.  She had been trailing a smuggler named Cristo that the CIA suspected to be somehow connected to Shabal.  The movie then moves briefly to Somalia where two of the SEALs are sent to observe the terrorists smuggling something out of the country, and then finally the team heads to Mexico where they finally have their big show down against Shabal, his suicide bombers, and a drug cartel that is attempting to help the terrorists cross the border into the US.

The film makers have used the fact the SEAL team is played by actual Navy SEALs as a major selling point for the movie and a big part of its marketing campaign, this decision is something that both helps and hurts the movie.  I’ll start with what I found to the negatives in using this gimmick.  The major flaw in having Navy SEALs play these roles rather than using trained actors is that the SEALs are not very good actors.  A movie needs to have more than just action sequences to be successful, and if your actors can’t deliver dialog in a realistic manner, or convey authentic emotion in the scenes that call for it, your movie is going to suffer.  On the other hand, the positive of having real Navy SEALs portray these characters is that they bring an additional notion of realism to the movie, the action and the military tactics come across as authentic because these are true professionals who have trained for, and have likely been in these types of situations.   Each of the missions features some truly exciting sequences that had me on the edge of my seat (particularly during the rescue mission in Columbia).  That is not to say that the action scenes are perfect, for some reason the film makers decided to work some random first person perspective shots into each of the films major action set pieces.  Very rarely did these shots feel natural and mostly I found them to be distracting and unnecessary (just as it was the last time I saw a movie try to do it back in 2005 with the movie Doom).  It will be interesting to see what fans of first person military video games think about these sequences.

In the end Act of Valor was an average action movie that will be remembered for using active duty SEALs rather than actors.  When it came time to give this movie a score I found myself a little more forgiving of the movies flaws than I would have been if it had been made in a more traditional manner.  I am giving Act of Valor 3 Buckets of popcorn.