by Mark Pittman
Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hr. 51 min.
Ignoring the Hollywood status quo, the director/producer team of Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh (aka the Bandito Brothers), have brought the War on Terror to a theater near you using real, active duty U.S. Navy SEALs. Using an anomalous format, McCoy and Waugh managed to create an unprecedented blend of real-life heroism and original filmmaking.
If you’ve ever thought that acting is easy and that “anybody can do it,” your mind will change after hearing the SEALs deliver the lamest canned dialogue ever filmed. Not to throw fault at just the servicemen, screenplay writer Kurt Johnstad deserves several page’s worth of blame.
Luckily, the SEALs who participated resist being called actors because they were merely doing what SEALS do every day.
“The hardest part was saying the lines,” says Special Warfare Operator First Class Ajay James. “Running around and shooting guns and moving and communicating, that’s commonplace. That’s nothing. Sitting there and speaking to someone and making it not sound fake was really difficult.”
According to Navy SEAL LT Rorke Denver, using live fire is a regular day at the office. “For us, it’s very comfortable,” he explains. “We train to that standard because you want to train like you fight.”
Despite their background as stuntmen, McCoy and Waugh discovered live fire was unlike anything they’d done before. “It adds an intensity and a level of respect for what you’re doing like nothing else in the world,” says McCoy. “We had 3,000 rounds a minute coming out of one gun. It adds a charge and energy to the film. Everybody’s on point. If you get it wrong, people die.”
One could assume that publicly revealing your identity as a SEAL could be detrimental to national security – not to mention your general personal safety. So, many have wondered how it was approved by Navy Special Warfare to show the eight SEALs’ faces onscreen. After all, their names aren’t mentioned in the credits nor are they listed on imdb.com. We will just have to wonder.
The plot uses fictionalized accounts of real SEAL missions. The first call to action for the Navy SEAL unit is to rescue a captured CIA operative (Roselyn Sanchez) in Costa Rica. During her rescue, a smart phone is found which contains information about an imminent global threat. From there, the story moves to surveillance in Somalia then much closer to home — illegal immigration tunnels on the Mexican border.
To rate “Act of Valor” as an entertainment movie would be somewhat of an injustice as it is more of a documentary that easily pulls double-duty as a recruiting tool for the U.S. Navy. In fact, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see a “Rosie the Riveter” impersonator or an Armed Forces recruiting table in the lobby.
For some, getting past the military intrepid theme may be difficult. But, you’ve got to admit that live fire battles are downright scary. In the end, the predictable storyline and corny dialogue delivery left more holes than the 50 mm shells.
