Act of Valor is the first feature film by the Bandito Films directing duo “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh (both professional stunt men). If you look only at the gimmick they use to promote the film, the active duty Navy SEAL cast makes it easy to dismiss this as a promotional video for the US Navy. In many ways the movie is a commercial for US Military capability, however, sometimes even commercials can be great.
Let me set everyone’s mind at ease: have no fear, people get blown away and lots of stuff gets blown up. There are big guns, little guns, automatic guns, Gatling guns, grenades, rocket launchers, and even a few human claymore mines. The good guys are heroic freedom fighters with families and the bad guys are vengeful jihadists with no self-worth. So yeah, the story is a soup of reductive patriotism.
But, here’s where things get interesting. The particulars of this soup defy the common reality of how horrific real war can get. Be prepared for a no-holds barred enemy that first blows up 100 smiling children then beats the shit out of and tortures a woman. For this film, there seems to be no brutal worst case scenario that is off limits.
The film does have glaring flaws. Primarily, the movie fails to sell on the heavy sentimental moments with the SEAL’s families. Fortunately though, the mistakes the film makes are fully encapsulated in these limp character dialogue scenes. What the directors don’t seem to understand is that frankly no one cares about who’s having a baby, who is best buddies with whom, and who is getting promoted to what. It isn’t something that non-actors can pull off and it isn’t necessary when the drama of military ritual speaks for itself. In fact, the few scenes that successfully jerk at your tears are ritual moments of military culture. And, these moments don’t need anyone’s family back story, they need little more than the almost poetic war calloused narration that glues the film together.
But, as dramatically as the film fails to make the SEALs do what they can’t do (act) it succeeds when it lets them do what they actually do. Tactical scenarios play out on the screen like a chess game where the players are blindfolded, the 
pawns are grenades, and the loser gets a sniper bullet to the skull. Even better, it’s refreshing to see a modern military movie that uses technology that actually exists, instead of inventing tech to fulfill the needs of the script
In a more Meta sense, the biggest success of the film may be the anti-terrorism objective it pursues. It reinvigorates the invisibility for those on the inside, strengthens the hope of efficacy for those who on the outside, and communicates fear to those who are plotting from afar. But hold up, did anyone really buy a ticket to this movie to debate its impact on the global war on terror? No! You have to consider what the movie is trying to be and for whom it is trying to be that. They bought their ticket, signed their receipt, and sat down with their popcorn to see bad ass SEALs kick the tar out of bad guys, blow stuff up, rescue the girl, and save the world. And since that’s what we want, we can ignore the silly transgressions into flat character dialogue because bad-assery is something Act of Valor delivers in spades.
Rating: Despite the flat dialogue, the “real SEALs” manage to kick some serious jihadists ass (7/10)
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