Saturday night I went to see "Act of Valor" at the Somerville Theatre. As a fan of both action and military movies (two very different things, thank you), I had high expectations going in and had spent a fair amount of time prior to my evening at the movies reading about and watching videos about the making of the film.
For those unaware, "Act of Valor" is a movie about Navy SEALs, the Navy's elite special operators, doing elite special operations. The plot is ridiculous, which was disappointing for anyone who was hoping for a storyline that didn't feel like it was pulled out of a hat filled with buzzwords. Jihadists! Chechens! Mexico! The gist is that some Jihadists in the South Pacific intend to attack America with suicide bombers using tunnels dug by a drug cartel in Mexico, and the SEALs have to uncover the plot and stop it before it's too late. Don't strain your brain muscles trying to follow along, as scenes jump from one half of the world to the other with no continuity. Viewers will definitely get lost in this movie and they will need some military training to find the plot again.
As for acting, expect none of that. Aside from a supporting cast of no−names, the movie's hook is that the major actors are not actors at all, but genuine active−duty Navy SEALs. So for all those looking for Oscar performances, turn elsewhere. In fact, don't even bother trying to remember who is who, as two of the characters are so remarkably similar in appearance and mannerisms, and use "LT" and "Chief" interchangeably as names, that I honest to goodness forgot who was who and just gave up on trying to figure it out.
Of course, all of the above is unnecessary, as most action fans are not here to see acting or plot. They are here for the action! Normally in war movies, I like to pick out where and how the actor or director screwed the pooch with the action sequences. One can imagine the actor has a trainer on set, somebody who actually knows what the scene is supposed to look like if conducted in real life. After a couple of takes, though, nobody likes how meticulous a real operation is supposed to be and so they resort to jumping and diving and using their infinite ammo cheats a la "Commando" (1985), which was also about Navy SEALs.
Instead of throwing caution to the wind and immediately going for the big explosions, directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh actually care about what the SEALs do in combat. Every action sequence, aside from one or two brief moments, plays out as an actual operation would. The heightened sense of realism is palpable: There is effective use of helmet cameras to provide engrossing first−person views in some sequences, as well as some excellent camera placement. Combined, the first−person views and solid camerawork make the action sequences engrossing. Unfortunately, they are too few and far between to redeem the movie.
Overall, "Act of Valor" is aggressively average. It tries very hard to be riveting and engrossing, but ultimately falls short. The attempts to engross the viewer in the tense atmosphere of a tight−knit special operations unit are ham−fisted, and no character ever grows on the viewer enough for him to care about their emotional struggles, or the struggles of the unit. The action sequences are accurately depicted and well−performed, as is to be expected of people whose job is to execute those operations in real life. Unfortunately, these scenes are brief and too spread out to keep the viewer's adrenaline going.
Finally, the movie attempts to be gritty, but not too gritty, if you know what I mean. There is blood, there is torture and this is definitely not a film to go on a date to ("The Vow" is a theater over), but it's as though they ran out of the special−effects budget somewhere in the middle of the movie. Blood and guts are spilled all over the first half, and then suddenly all the blood just ... stops. Scenes that should have been graphic to match the grit of the first half are tamed down and lack the visceral draw of the first raid of the movie. In fact, one word describes the whole movie: inconsistent.
