ACT OF VALOR – The Review

There are times I feel the need to walk on eggshells when discussing a film. ACT OF VALOR is one of those instances where I have two conflicting but equally valid opinions on the film’s perceived purpose and success thereof. For a film that has been relatively well marketed for what seems like a fairly good stretch of time, I imagine most who have seen the trailers and TV spots are well aware that the film is an action story based upon real tactics and missions, most likely a hybrid of several pieced together, as not to reveal any specifically sensitive information. Considering this, how does the film grade?

ACT OF VALOR is co-directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh. The film is cast with real, active-duty Navy SEALs, which on its own merit, is a really cool concept, a concept that equally fails and succeeds, depending on which aspect of the film we are discussing. What do I mean? Let me put it this way… Anytime you cast a film with untrained, non-professional actors — or amateurs, in short – you run the risk of poor performance destroying a film, despite the quality of its many parts in whole. That is not the case with ACT OF VALOR, well… not entirely. The greater portion of the blame during certain scenes goes to a low level of dramatic writing and bad dialogue, but there is some blame to be put on throwing inexperienced actors into these types of roles. Hence, one key hurdle for the modern rise of indie film that often must be overcome.

What are these key scenes? I’ll step back for a moment and discuss what does work, which is roughly 75% of the film. This majority of the film takes place in the military mindset of a mission, prep leading into a mission, or official correspondence and interaction on a military level. On this level, the primary cast works wonderfully, not because of some ingrained acting ability, but because that’s what these SEALs do, this is their job, their lives even. It’s not acting for them, so in that sense it comes off entirely authentic. Combine this with the successfully executed use of dynamic cinematography to capture the intense and often chaotic moments of a mission, and this saves an otherwise doomed concept that could have failed miserably if it had been cast entirely with non-military trained actors. Bravo for the bold move.

However, the remaining 25% of the film deals with civilian life, family and the drama that occurs when not in uniform or on a mission. This is where ACT OF VALOR breaks down. The dialogue is bad, the delivery is forced and in many cases, overly melodramatic. In these scenes, the film takes on a decidedly disappointing made-for-TV daytime drama personality. Fortunately, this is limited enough so that it does not ruin the experience, but add to this an underlying narration from one of the SEALs that delivers a bit of poetic, but unnecessary back story and it becomes just slightly harder to swallow, that is of course until the big guns begin to fire.

Yes, ACT OF VALOR has big guns. There’s more to the film than this, specifically the welcome and positive tribute the film serves as to honor the special ops soldiers, both living and deceased. On the other hand, when it comes to making a financially successful, entertaining movie, it never hurts to have big guns and explosions, which occur on a frequent but not overblown scale. One scene in particular that had me giggling maniacally like a demented 13-year old boy was an action-packed, tension-filled scene depicting the extraction of the team from the jungle that involves… well, big guns and explosions. Yeah, mini-gun’s rule!

The villains, namely two bad guys in collaboration on one nasty scheme against the Unites States, are played rather well by actors Alex Veadoz and Dimiter Marinov. That’s right, they did not cast “actual” terrorists and bad guys in these roles, but in this case, we’re better off. These two men offer a great deal of dramatic punch where the SEALs are unable to deliver on a level we’re used to seeing in big, Hollywood films. There is also an unexpected but welcome and fitting cameo by Emilio Rivera, which will surely delight any fans of the FX series SONS OF ANARCHY.

In the end, the action and intense combat choreography, intense realism in tactics and the somewhat unconventional camera work keeps ACT OF VALOR afloat despite the relatively miniscule acting faux pa while in the civilian moments. On a note regarding the camera work, gamers will find some of the action reminiscent of so many first-person combat games, but the directors were smart and integrated this sparingly when useful, rather than focusing heavily on this for combat scenes. If you enjoy these types of movies, ACT OF VALOR is worth a look, so long as you are willing to bite your tongue and look past the non-military scenes, but more importantly, appreciate the active duty military men and women who are the focus of this film, presented in part as a tribute.

Soldier Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Civilian Rating: 2 out of 5 stars