Act of Valor
Directors: Mike McCoy, Scott Waugh
Actors: Alex Veadov, Alexander Asefa, Nestor Serrano, Roselyn Sanchez
Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001
Genre(s): Action
Running time: 110 minutes
As action movies starring complete acting novices go, Act of Valor is not without its moments. The proprietor of some impressively slick sequences on a surprisingly slim budget, it is nonetheless a glorified recruitment video for the US military - unsurprisingly that's what it started life as.
Centring on a Navy Seal operation to rescue a kidnapped CIA Agent, our heroes are here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and they're all out... ah forget it. This is a bunch of elite solider, being all elite. Kind of like Top Gun, only even more like a Old Spice commercial (but directed by Michael Bay).
Offering the kind of gung-ho, shamelessly patriotic air punching not seen since Team America, this is bound to piss liberals, or anyone with an aversion to folk being blown up, off. It is what it is, and wears its amateurish dramatics firmly on its sleeve, but that doesn’t make everything outside of the action sequences any easier to swallow. While technically impressive, it's still often hard to believe this isn’t being marketed down a satirical play on a often clichéd genre.
Listen, the directors were primarily stunt guys before turning to helming, and obviously get hard by looking at military equipment... and good for them. This films big box-office stateside proves there is definitely a market there for gun porn. But there's no doubting how poorly realised and clichéd pretty much every character is. The explosions and shootouts are the only remotely realistic thing about Act of Valor.
Action junkies will get their fix, but will have to suffer through a lot to get there.
