So far over the past 10 years or so there have been a lot of Hollywood action movies that have had the US military are a major part or the focus. The soldiers are never shown in a poor light really but I guess after awhile someone had the idea “Hmm, I wonder what it would be like if we a made a movie about soldiers with soldiers?” That’s what we have here in Act of Valor, a Hollywood action movie where all the SEALs are played by ACTUAL SEALS. This movie is almost like G.I. Joe the REAL real American hero.

The story of Act of Valor is basically a Jihadist terrorist is plotting a major attack on the US States using suicide bombers from the Philippines. He has connections to a major Russian International smuggler who is being watched by the CIA. SEAL Team 7 has to go all around the world and stop this all from happening from saving a capture CIA operative to getting intel on the terrorist himself to attacking the cartels who are helping terrorist in getting into America. This whole thing is a big explosion and awesomeness put on film.
Let’s get this out of the way, a lot of critics have said some film are like video games because of action set pieces and CG effects or characters. They really are using it wrong this movie is like a video game and a specific one at that. This movie probably on purpose is the Call of Duty Modern Warfare movie. It’s plot is very similar to one you’d play in one of these games. The HUD like graphics over maps and introducing characters/people are like something you would see before a mission and to top it off many of the scene in battle are done in a first person view just like you would play in game of that genre.

The acting really isn’t that great by the soldiers but it really doesn’t need to be. The scenes where they are doing what they do everyday is great since they aren’t acting this is what they do. It’s like watching beautifully film training exercises to sell people on signing up for the military. All the actual actor do decent jobs of playing the villains or helper characters in the movie. There is not much depth to them. The bad guys are evil-they want to kill us and destroy our way of life. The CIA people are CIA people they need to be saved and they never give up even under torture.
So should you go see this movie? If you like action movies you surely should see this. It’s almost like the military movie Michael Bay has been wanting to make in all his Transformers movies these past 5 years or so. If blatant propaganda bothers you then maybe you should sit home because this is love letter to the US military with no cynicism at all.
Final Grade is C+

Originally published on Reel Film News