In 2007, around the time that Act of Valor was first being kicked around by the Navy, the military was experiencing the lowest recruitment levels in their history. It was so bad, that within a few months they would be lowering the entrance standards to historic levels. Something had to be done, and since they already had directors Scott Waugh and Mike "Mouse" McCoy on the payroll shooting recruitment vids, it made sense to use their talents in what would essentially be a feature length commercial that would feature real military grade equipment and active duty Navy Seals.
It's not the worst idea in the world. John Ford made propaganda movies for the military during WWII. Although Act of Valor probably would have disappeared into the dustbin of movie history if not for the arrival of Seal Team 6 into the national consciousness. Their high profile capture and disposal of Osama Bin Laden had every studio clamoring for a movie on the prized military unit, and in June of 2011 Relativity bought the rights to Act of Valor for a whopping sum, especially when you figure there isn't a single big name star attached.
With all that build up, Act of Valor digs itself into a pretty deep hole right off the bat, with the directors explaining to us in detail just how authentic their movie is compared to others. To their mind, and that of the Navy apparently, no actor can adequately carry out the physical and emotion tolls. Their movie is different than everybody else's. A perfectly fine position to take if actors were being asked to actually go to war. But as it turns out, soldiers can't carry the emotional and physical tolls of...well, acting. Even worse, McCoy and Waugh prove themselves to be exactly what they claim not to be in the beginning, which is just another pair of Hollywood directors pulling the exact same stunts. What's the difference between these two and the Crank duo of Neveldine/Taylor? Oh, Neveldine/Taylor have a signature style, that's what. McCoy and Waugh look like they studied at the Peter Berg School for Michael Bay Imitators.
The story actually kicks off with an unsettling bang, with a suicide bomber in Jakarta using an ice cream truck to lure dozens of children into the blast radius. Confidence that we may be privy to a more realistic, less glamorized approach is bolstered by the matter-of-fact nature of this disturbing scene. The incident is the tip of the iceberg, of course, with a deep cover agent(Roselyn Sanchez) investigating the terrorists beaten and taken hostage, forcing the United States to call in the heavy hitting Navy Seals for a snatch 'n grab operation that soon explodes into a full on war against terror.
It's at this point we're introduced to the brave men(no skirts on this squad!) we'll be following for the course of the film, mostly through some terribly dry and plodding narration giving us the most basic introduction to the team as possible. Part of the reason could be to emphasize the unit rather than the individual, which is understandable, but that idea is nixed with the stilted attempt to show a close-knit and deeply personal bond between Dave and Lieutenant Rorke. We see the entire unit and their families hanging out on the beach, the men saying tearful good byes to their families before deployment on this dangerous mission. Using the soldiers and their real life families proves to be a major mistake for a number of reasons, but the most significant is that it's hard even for the most well trained actor to play themselves. In an instance like this, what we get are soldiers and their wives acting out how they wish to be portrayed, rather than just being natural. It comes off as stiff and resoundingly inauthentic.All the while this is being backed by the narrator, making vague allusions to bravery, honor, and courage. Great ideals to uphold, certainly, but the guy reading it sounds like somebody forgot to remove the bolts from his head. It's just macho talk with little substance behind it, a warrior code that you might find draped on the tunnel leading onto a football field, or screamed into a boxer's face between rounds. It sounds good, and hits all the patriotic buttons, but not much else. Frankly, it sounds like something out of Zack Snyder's 300, so it shouldn't be a surprise to know the script comes from that Spartan flick's writer, Kurt Johnstad. Nuance and subtlety haven't entered into his playbook over the last five years, apparently.
Succeeding in it's primary objective most completely during the film's biggest action set piece, where the actual live fire from the military grade armaments is put to jaw dropping use as the team mounts a watery rescue mission. Waugh and McCoy set the action up beautifully, revelling in the thousands of spent bullet shells booming from the hydrofoil's cannon. This leads to a crazy, high speed chase that shows the directors will make some great action movies in the future. Great Hollywood style action movies. The rest of the film spits in the face of their supposed realism yet again, as splattery head shots are all too frequent, seen in a video game style first-person shooter perspective that we've seen numerous times before. There's nothing new here, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, when you make the claim that we're about to experience something totally outside the realm of Hollywood filmmaking, you ought to back that up. Right?
Act of Valor is going to be a polarizing film, though, as some will bend themselves into a pretzel to defend it and it's heroic stars. On the way out of the attended screening, a colleague in the same breath categorized the film as being the most realistic military move he had ever seen and it was totally like Call of Duty. What? The truth lies somewhere in between. The genuine hardware does add a little something extra, but the bad acting, generic direction, and the filmmaker's outright arrogance does the movie no favors. Waugh and McCoy can pump their chests all they like over using real soldiers to re-enact what soldiers do, but who cares if they fail miserably at presenting a cohesive story? This is a movie, after all, right? Best leave it to the professionals.
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