In Act of Valor, a recruitment poster loosely disguised as a movie, the story is fictional but the leading men are not.
That's the gimmick here: In the name of realism, actual Navy Seals have been cast to play themselves. Unfortunately, in the name of drama, they're shipped out to the usual bogus plot – in this case, something about saving America from the clutches of suicidal terrorists doubly wrapped in their beliefs and their bombs.
But say this for the real Seals. As performers, they are to the action genre what the male stars are to porn flicks – laughably wooden in the dialogue department, yet pretty impressive wielding their weapon of choice.
We first meet the Seals at the San Diego training camp, skydiving from planes and, in their idle hours, bonding in the surf. Meanwhile, out in the big bad world, nasty business continues apace. A car bomb kills the U.S. ambassador in the Philippines, and, over in Costa Rica, a CIA agent is kidnapped, then tortured.
Since she's sorely in need of rescuing, the Seals shift into operational gear, parachuting down to the jungle, packing an arsenal of modern firepower along with a quaint supply of old-fashioned lingo. Lots of coded exchanges like, "Whiplash, this is Blackbeard, roger that." Yes, lots of rogering too.
Actually, these early sequences are a pleasant surprise. Co-directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh handle the lead-up to the derring-do with an adroit mix of aerial panoramas and bug-eyed close-ups, jumpy point-of-view shots alternating with calculated slow motion.
The look is stylish but clean; indeed, for a few shining minutes, we almost buy into the picture's casting gimmick and its claims to verisimilitude. After all, the movies have conditioned us to wooden acting from our action heroes, and, when push comes to shoot-em-up, these boys definitely have the right stuff.
But then comes more of that damnable plot. The villains are twofold: A Ukrainian dope-dealer-cum-arms-merchant known only as Christos, and a Chechen terrorist who's tailored a fashionably new and ultra-lethal exploding vest. The latter plans to import the vests and their wearers over the Mexican border into targeted American cities.
However, it's the former who captures our attention. As played by Alex Veadov, a professional thespian, the charismatic Christos steals every scene he's in, especially the one set on his luxury yacht adorned with a full crew of female admirers in uniformly skimpy bikinis.
Suddenly, that recruitment poster takes an inadvertent but enticing turn into shallower waters: Join the Christos Navy, be all that you can be.
Too soon, it's back to the brave Seals, as they assemble in Mexico to do battle with the vest-smuggler along with various miscreants from the drug cartel. Although the Seals continue in fine form, the co-directors seem fatigued from the journey, allowing their once-clean style to degenerate into a typical mishmash of clutter and bombast.
Nevertheless, even amid the noisy chaos, it's easy to make out the moment when the code of honour meets an act of valour, prompting a brave lad to take one for the team, falling on a grenade in order to save his comrades.
All hail that flag-waving moment, when the deal is really Sealed: How sweet and fitting it is to die in defence of a movie cliché.
Act of Valor
- Directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh
- Written by Kurt Johnstad
- Starring unnamed but actual U.S. Navy Seals
- Classification: 14A
- 2 stars