Movie review: Act of Valor ***

Stars: Roselyn Sanchez, Alex Veadov, Jason Cottle
Director: Scott Waugh, Mike McCoy
Rated: R
Showing: Speciality Cinema week of Friday, March 9. For more information call 292-2135.
Tickets: Buy tickets online
Runtime: 111 minutes
Action/adventure

Act of Valor is an amped-up, action-packed adventure about the exploits of the Navy's "Sea, Air and Land" commando teams - the SEALs. It's a furiously macho saga scripted by the screenwriter of 300 and starring those always-get-their-man men of mystery - real Navy SEALs.

What the filmmaking duo who bill themselves as "The Bandito Brothers" have concocted is an episodic, reverent round-the-world sprint that follows a team of SEALs as they hunt Islamo-terrorists, narco terrorists, arms smugglers and their fellow travellers from Africa to Central America. They're trying to stop a team of suicide bombers from making their way across the US border.

In bracing, first-person-shooter video game-style photography, we follow a platoon of "operators," as they're called - Rorke, Mikey, Dave, et. al - as they rescue a CIA agent (Roselyn Sanchez) before she is tortured to death, hound a smuggler (Alex Veadov, not the most arresting villain) who is aiding terrorists, and pursue the Chechnyan mastermind (Jason Cottle) who wants to strike America and cause a global economic collapse.

The SEALs themselves are only sketched in - the veteran chief, the expectant dad, assorted strong, elemental men. Their names are left off of the credits. They're all about mission and code and ethos.

Writer Kurt Johnstad's testosterone-laced script is built around a SEAL's narration, a letter suggesting the generations of tough military men who spawned this current outfit, the love of staying dangerous into their golden years, the lack of fear.

I appreciated the movie's limited chest thumping, its lack of zingy one-liners and politics. These guys are all business.

The narration may be portentous in the extreme, but the dialogue among the SEALs is simple and unadorned, if littered with military acronyms and jargon.

The fellows who rescue kidnap victims, free hijacked ships and took down Osama bin Laden are serious soldiers, close-knit and guarded. In the film's brilliantly shot and cut combat scenes, their elite (unseen) training pays off, the necessity of their hi-tech hardware is illuminated. And yet when bullets are flying, they are going to take casualties. They bleed. They aren't supermen or Hollywood action heroes.