Act of Valor hits the big screens across the country today, and I highly suggest you go see it. Heck, I already got a free preview but I’ll be spending my cold hard cash to see it again tonight because it was just that good. For more info check out our review of Act of Valor.

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22 COMMENTS

  1. saw it at a preview a few weeks ago in STL with some Seals and a ton of US Navy personnel. Well worth seeing again.

    • Given how prestigious elite units are, why would they need a recruiting film? I would think the “regular Army” and Navy would need to make themselves look more appealing.
      BTW, Saturday Night Live had a classic fake commercial about Navy life back in the early 1980s showing the drudgery of shipkeeping tasks at sea, and ended with a tag line like, “Navy… it’s not just a job, it’s 98.76 a week.”

      • Given how prestigious elite units are, why would they need a recruiting film?

        The elite units don’t, but you can’t be a SEAL unless you’re first in the Navy. It’s not bait and switch, though. The reputation of the SEALs burnishes the image of the entire Navy. Plus, it’s hard to make a movie to glorify swabbing out the head.

        • The navy’s recruiting problem is that too many people know how much time the new guys have to spend removing rust. Not much SEAL in that, eh? You can do all the cool SEAL stuff on your own dime if you just study bookkeeping carefully.

          • Truth be known, though, I’ve got three uncles who are retired navy, and two of them wouldn’t give back a minute of it. No SEALS, just subs and planes. They’re fun too, no?

    • I was wondering if it was, Ralph. Thanks for that. Wasn’t Behind Enemy Lines with Owen Wilson a navy film as well?

  4. After seeing the liberal newspaper reviews do their best to quash this movie, I decided to drag the missus to watch it with me.

  5. OK, just came from the show. A question for Nick… Why dual-use of red lasers and EOTechs on M4s in a lot of situations…is that par for the course? And with all of the sophisticated armament they dragged out, the SEALS would not have green lasers? Inquiring non-SEALS would like to know…
    PS- The guns are great. The acting, notsomuch. But who cares…

  7. As a reality check, you can watch Mein Krieg on You Tube. German soldiers home movies while on the Russian Front. Very graphic.

  9. Just saw it today, excellent all around. I would not take a 7 year old to see it, a few graphic scenes when the woman is tortured.

    Action is as close to real life as you are going to get in a Hollywood movie. The characters use a lot of lingo that most people outside the military will probably not understand, but that’s okay.

    Great POV scenes that give you an idea of what it’s like to look through the soldier’s eyes, occasionally.

    Must-see for any reader of this blog.

  10. Came back from the movies a few hours ago. Just go watch it – it’s a good, earnest movie. My wife was tearing up, and the theater was dead silent for a good twenty seconds after it ended. No one wanted to be the first to stand up.

    1. Action – obviously impeccable. Without spoiling the movie, it’s great. The mechanics of the action are well-done. The movement, the gunfire, it all looks real because it is real. The more notable aspects are that when good guys go down, they go down just as fast and as hard as the bad guys. When they enter a room, they don’t just light it up. Positive ID on friendlies and non-combatants. They often hold their fire for tactical surprise.

    2. Settings and Story. The sets are unremarkable, and the story could be lifted from any recent video game or spy thriller. It just does the job, and provides some packaging for the action. The exceptions are the truly thrilling scenes of infil and exfil from the open sea, by boat, helo, and submarine.

    3. Acting. It’s earnest, and decent. Forget the snarky newspaper reviews. If you spend your life living among jaded yuppies who breathe only irony and sarcasm, then you might find their acting comical or corny. But if you know people who are earnest and honest, and say what they mean, this is that. Just people talking. The dialogue can be bad at times, but that’s not their fault.

    4. For lack of a better word, mood. This movie is reverent. No snark here. It holds valor as a sacred virtue. If you can’t stand being asked to respect something like that, you will hate it. Otherwise, you will be a bit shaken-up by the end.

  11. Saw it.

    Quite frankly, the way you portrayed it, I almost thought I was going to see something that competes with Saving Private Ryan, instead what I got was movie I could easily just tell people David Duke helped write.

    Ridiculous story lines and terrible acting are what the is movie about.

    The most ridiculous is really the whole thing about Navy SEALS just being such bad asses that they can do anything with the very little resources they are given or the going way out of their way to make the evil guy who has made it all possible is a Jew.

    • I don’t read antisemitism into that fact, it’s only presented as “Why are you friends with that guy that is a radical Islamist?”

      You’re welcome to read into the movie anything that you want, but the black and Hispanic SEALs are presented as equals throughout the movie. If you’re hoping for an undercurrent of racism, there really isn’t one there.

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