The Navy SEALs are some of the most skilled warriors in the special operations community, and “Act of Valor” has a unique chance to show this with its decision to cast active-duty SEALs in the starring roles. Unfortunately, thanks to appalling writing, a basic plot and a constant reliance on down-the-gun-sight camera work, the film looks more like a “Call of Duty” cutscene than an exercise in elite warfare.
When a CIA officer goes missing, a team of SEALs (all referred to only by first names or rank and unlisted in the credits for security purposes) is dispatched to find her. In the process, they uncover a link between a drug and arms smuggling network and a dangerous terrorist cell poised to strike the United States.
The benefit to having highly-trained soldiers as your stars is that the movie can showcase their skills and unprecedented combat knowledge, but novice directors Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh can rarely find the occasion to. The result is a parade of dimly lit low-altitude parachute drops, choppily filmed building takedowns and generic shootouts complete with exaggerated bullet-impact sound effects.
The SEALs are clearly in their element in the pre-mission briefing and operational planning scenes and during a particularly gripping interrogation, but for the most part the lackluster script reduces them to cliché-spewing underdeveloped caricatures. Secrecy is often the nature of their work, but it unfortunately means that the audience never gets a window into their personal histories and motivations.
“Act of Valor” is a movie that grossly misuses its elite SEAL warriors by dropping them into a poorly scripted, by-the-numbers action film. Unfortunately, this is one mission the higher-ups should have never sent them on.
-Mark Niegelsky
Watch a trailer for “Act of Valor” here:
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