Act of Valor (B): Splattering heads, live ammo make movie feel like an Xbox game

Relativity Media/Relativity Media
M 196 Navy SEALs train on a high altitude low opening jump in Relativity's Media's upcoming release, "Act of Valor".
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Ukrainian arms dealers! Filipino terrorists! Mexican cartels! The ice cream truck driver! The Chinese delivery guy! No one is to be trusted in the dangerous world of Act of Valor — no one, that is, except the Navy SEALs who jet from one set of global coordinates to the next as they try to thwart an insidious terrorist plot. If you get in their way, chances are better than even that your head will end up splattered against a wall.

As you know if you watched ads during the Super Bowl, Act of Valor is peopled largely by real-life, active-duty SEALs. They fire live ammo in scenes designed to make you feel like your finger is on the trigger, much like the shooting games so popular with the Xbox set. When they’re away from battle, which isn’t often in this high-speed, high-impact plunge, they banter about family and trade friendly insults.

If it sounds like a recruiting film, that’s because it is. Act of Valor, directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh, was conceived by the Navy as a means of drumming up interest in joining the ranks. Picture the high production value of U.S. military television ads, maybe that new one that caresses a massive aircraft on a clear, blue ocean. Extend to 101 minutes. Mix in scant plot and character elements: on one side a nice SEAL with a baby on the way; on the other, a pair of hotheaded terror collaborators looking to smuggle undetectable, high-tech dirty bombs into the States.

Then start splattering heads.

The movie doesn’t pretend to be anything but propaganda, a modern-day cousin to the morale-boosting documentaries made by John Huston and Frank Capra during World War II. Not only do the bad guys come bearing kung pao and Rocky Road, they also interrogate a female CIA agent with a drill (instant stigmata symbolism). Meanwhile, the U.S. interrogator uses an appeal to family unity. ’Cause that’s how we roll. This is still Hollywood, despite the impressive battlefield verisimilitude.

Act of Valor was hatched well before SEALs helped take down Osama bin Laden, but the release timing is fortuitous for the recruiting cause. Just think: You could hunt terrorists and land in an action movie to boot.


B Directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh. Rated R (violence and torture, language). 101 mins. In wide release.

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