Act of Valor

Act of Valor (2012)

30% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 87 reviews)

Runtime: 111 minutes

Directed by: Mike McCoy, Scott Waugh

Starring: Actual real-life Navy SEALs and legit actors like Roslyn Sanchez and Nestor Serrano

From: Relativity Media

Here's a movie you've heard all about for awhile, as it stars actual on-duty Navy SEALs acting in a motion picture alongside Hollywood stars; it's quite the unique gimmick and I was real interested in seeing if this was just a gimmick or something more.

I ended up watching this on Saturday night due to a last minute change in plans, but I still waited to do this review on Tuesday.

Anyhow, the plot is that the SEALs go to Costa Rica to rescue a CIA operative (Sanchez) but they soon find out that the situation is much worse than they first realized; there's a plot going on involing some bad guys (such as a Chechen rebel) who want to use suicide bombers using a rather destructive weapon to cause a lot of havoc in the United States. Drug dealers are also involved, so the action goes from Africa to the Ukraine and then to Mexico.

I know that this movie has gotten a lot of hate from the critical types, and also the people on movie messageboards who try to act all wannabe hotshots and faux intellectual types. I do understand a lot of the criticism. War is made to look simplistic to be jingoistic (although this movie is far from being as xenophobic and ethnic-baiting as those same types would like to say; I'll still call it AMERICA, FUCK YEAH! THE MOVIE, as not only is it funny but because of the jingoism), the non-actors act about as well as you'd expect non-actors to, and the plot and situations aren't always presented in the best way.

Yet, I can't say that I hated this movie. I'm not giving this movie a pass because I'm afraid to be labeled un-American if I rip on a movie all about the military and the troops. I honestly thought it was at least an acceptable time at the theatre; there's still enough entertaining action scenes to make me happy. There wasn't really anything that blew me away but at least it was fun to watch. Many sons of bitches get shot in the head! How can you go wrong there? More than one person has described it as being something like you'd expect from the Cannon studio in the 80's; to me, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

But most importantly, as someone who is about as far as you can get from being fit to serve in the military, it was interesting to see them do everything using live ammunition and also real-life tactics that the SEALs do, as I had no idea about that sort of thing. Point is, as someone who knows quite a few people who went overseas to fight for various branches of the military (and not everyone made it back home), it was nice to see how chaotic life can be for those guys. They're far braver than I am.

I'll be back Friday night with a new review.