Beaten to the Punch: Relativity to release Acts of Valor, starring active duty Navy Seals

Finally. Finally the Navy Seals can beat back the bad cinematic rap they attained ever since Charlie Sheen's Navy Seals back in 1990. Forget killing Osama Bin Laden, they haven't achieved a thing until that movie has been wiped completely from the world's memory.  In the past few months there have been what seems like dozens of movies about the elite military unit in the wake of Bin Laden's death. The most prominent being Kill Bin Laden, the film by The Hurt Locker duo of Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal. However it's looking like that one won't be the first shot across the bow afterall, as Relativity has acquired the rights to distribute Acts of Valor, a military film not just about the Seals, but starring them in all of the major lead roles.

Deadline has the news(prefaced with their annoying "TOLDJA!!"), reporting that the film is looking likely to be released on a major holiday, either Veteran's Day coming up in November, or President's Day next February. Either way it's going to beat out Bigelow's film to theaters, which could be a major coup since I still think the country is in the midst of "war movie fatigue" at this point. The film has already been shot by directors Mike "Mouse" McCoy and Scott Waugh, so it's ready to go. Initially due out some time last year, the film was originally titled I Am That Man. Kurt Johnstad(300) wrote the script.
All of the six major leads will be played by active members of the Navy Seals, with the full backing and support of the US military. But exactly what is the movie about? Is it a documentary? A work of fiction? Roselyn Sanchez(Rush Hour 2) and Emilio Rivera(Traffic) co-star, which leads me to believe the latter. The Relativity press release refers to the film as a "groundbreaking action thriller", so assume no actual IEDs were harmed in the making of this movie. The plot, taken from the press release, also indicates that the film is indeed fictional...

Act of Valor follows a Navy Seal squad on a covert mission to recover a kidnapped CIA agent, and in the process takes down a complex web of terrorist cells determined to strike America at all costs. The filmmakers had unprecedented Naval access resulting in high-octane combat sequences and never-before-seen military operation scenes which are composited from actual events in the lives of the men appearing in the film and their comrades.

Relativity is sparing no expense on this one. The plan is to release the film in 3000 theaters for a national run.  A few images of the shoot have been captured by The Tension, which you can check out below...