MOVIE REVIEW: ACT OF VALOR...

ACT OF VALOR, (2012), produced by the Bandito Brothers and released by Relativity Media, written by Kurt Johnstad, directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh, starring un-named active duty US Navy SEALs and Alex Veadov, Roselyn Sanchez and Nestor Serrano.  Rated "R" for strong violence and language, run time of 111 minutes.

We probably haven't seen a film like this since the darker days of World War Two where the US military cooperated so extensively with the producers, directors and the writer to produce a narrative that relies so heavily on active duty military personnel.  In some quarters this film is controversial because they will view it as straight out propaganda. 

I don't.

For once, we have a 'war' film that doesn't depend upon corrupt government officials as a major plot device, nor does it white-wash the bad guys into something no one who reads the newspapers, watches the idiot box evening news or even gets their information from the interweb would even come close to recognizing.  NO, these bad guys are 'bad guys' because they hate Americans and America, and Oh Yeah, they are followers of the Religion of Peace (?).

Essentially, this work depicts what goes on with a Navy SEAL unit in the covert war against terrorism.  The antagonist is a religious radical who gets his followers to carry out suicide attacks against Americans.  The first in this fictional story is against the American ambassador for the Philippines.  This raises his profile on the metaphorical radar screen and brings him to the attention of everyone concerned.  The guts of this film that follows is HOW our counter-terrorist military works through one specific branch, in this case, the Navy SEALs. 

The photography is excellent and this is all the more remarkable because this feature length film was supposedly shot entirely with 5D Canon cameras, a standard consumer grade SLR camera, not the standard Hollywood Panaflex monsters.

I have often objected in my previous reviews to the 'poor' shooting exhibited by the screen characters and how nothing reflects the REAL world.  That's not the case here and in fact in reading some on-line reviews by those from what I presume is the liberal left, they question why so it takes so few rounds to kill the bad guys and why were so many of these shots depicted....head shots?

My answer is when you are dealing with 'Extreme Professional' grade trigger pullers, who practice constantly and work with top tier equipment....THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS IN THE REAL WORLD!  Yeah, there is plenty of gunfire and explosions, but according to the background information available on the making of this film a good deal of the rounds being fired and shown are live rounds, NOT blanks.

Personally, I absolutely dug the scene where the Gatling Mini-Gun on the open river boat was working a shoreline of bad guys over and the empty brass was pouring out of that gun right toward the camera like a nozzle-less fire hose puking water.  HELL YES!!!  GET SOME!!!

I have criticisms of the film.  The first is I don't get its opening.  SEALs jumping out of a cargo plane over California have nothing to do with the opening story line and it left me confused.  Yes, the plot is straight forward and NOT your typical Hollywood convoluted mess.  Many are objecting to this film for that reason.  I'm not because I appreciate it's simple theme, which is essentially there are people out there who want to do us serious harm and these guys are doing their best to stop them.  Also, in my experience from shooting pigs at night with a totally suppressed weapon and subsonic ammo, the impact sound is far greater than that depicted in this film, but sound 'levels' can be deceiving.

Is the acting first rate?  Sad to say, the answer is NO.  It is amateurish in spots, if not 'cheezy' and out right heavy handed in brief moments, but the truth is it doesn't hinder the plot or the film itself.  Supposedly this whole project started out as a 'recruitment' film by the Navy, but was turned into a feature length film by the efforts of the directors who are two former Hollywood stunt men.  (They saw the chance to develop something that had a level of 'Reality' that has been missing from feature films for so long and they were tired of the usual nonsense Hollywood serves up in heaps on a shit-tray.)  Personally, although the acting is 'light', this film is far better than "THE GREEN LINE" or "JARHEAD" because we are sparred the left-wing political conspiracy crap I get so tired of seeing on the big screen.

It is important to note the 'lead' actors in this film are current, active duty military personnel and they were not paid to be in this work.  They already have full time employment as employees of the United States tax payer.  Additionally, they are NOT identified.  At the end of the film, however, they do list the names of those killed while serving our country as Navy Seals in this on-going fight to protect us.

I give ACT OF VALOR, 5 bullets out of 6 for my rating.  I would have given it more but I hated the opening after the story got going and because at times the 'acting' is marginal. 

Still overall this is a film I will see again in the theater before its distribution ends and it is also one that I will make sure and add to my personal film library.

Unless you are a bleeding heart liberal or a pseudo-drama-critic, I HIGHLY recommend you go see this film on the big screen...

All The Best,
Frank W. James