Review: Act of Valour

Based on real-life heroic deeds of American Navy SEALs, the film concerns a group of SEALs tasked with rescuing a kidnapped CIA agent (Roselyn Sanchez). The bad guys are two former childhood friends, Christo (Alex Veadov) and smuggler Abu Shabal (Jason Cottle) who are planning to bomb various places in the US.

 

Directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh, and scripted by Kurt Johnstad (“300”) this 2012 action movie wants the audience to get swooped up in ‘rah-rah’ Yankee-Doodle Dandy patriotism for American servicemen, and hope that you can overlook a fair amount of shortcomings. Unfortunately, just because the guys in this film are great at the real-life derring-do that they perform, it doesn’t make them necessarily convincing or interesting movie heroes. I wouldn’t have minded a role for R. Lee Ermey (a former Marine and now actor) or Dale Dye (who has been a technical adviser and bit-player in countless war films), but these guys certainly can’t carry a film on their own.  The directors felt actors wouldn’t be able to tap into what it’s like to be these guys 24/7. So what? If they can’t act, the SEALs won’t be able to convey any of that anyway, and that’s what happens. A bad or boring performance by a real-life Navy SEAL is no better or worse than that of a bad or boring actor playing a Navy SEAL.

 

None of the characters or actors here grabbed me (though I almost appreciated that these characters were pretty normal-seeming dudes), and thus I wasn’t much interested in the story, either. They aren’t bad actors, per se, they’re actually surprisingly competent (except the awful monotone narration). It’s just that they are kind of like an entire cast full of Michael Paré-types. They’re colourless, slightly monotonous, and lacking charisma, except the Senior Chief who thinks he’s hilarious (He’s not, though he has better acting ability than any of the others- slightly). The scene between him and the terrorist (played by the not terribly ethnic-sounding Jason Cottle, who used to be Dustin Hoffman’s son-in-law) is awful because there’s no sense of urgency while he’s playing such a smart-arse. BTW, isn’t Abu Shabal the name of an INXS album? Just sayin’. Meanwhile, killing off the only known actor in the first ten minutes in a film full of non-actors, perhaps wasn’t the smartest idea.

 

It’s a bland film and leaves you somewhat cold, with scenes featuring the main characters that are choppily done and episodic. They seem more like individual set-pieces even though they actually are part of the same story. It’s also full of clichés like the guy who’s about to be a proud papa. Uh-oh, we know what that means. It is, however, so well-shot that it might just be the best American military advertisement you’ll ever see (And indeed the film was originally conceived for recruitment purposes, I’ve read). It’s the kind of film you can just imagine Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer orgasming to, even though it’s really only in the last ten minutes that things get truly corny and hero-worshipping. Although it gets a little dark in night scenes (not good when the characters are all interchangeable) the cinematography by Christian Bale’s favourite cinematographer Shane Hurlbut (“Terminator Salvation”) is actually really attractive, and Hurlbut thankfully even manages to keep a fairly steady hand during one pretty cool vehicular chase scene. That was well-done.

 

Look, this isn’t an awful film, it’s just too earnest, clichéd, dry, and colourless. It’s just not worth your time or interest.

 

Rating: C