Be Reel: Act of Valor

I recently watched one of my favorite war movies; Act of Valor. This movie was based on a real life Seal Team 4 ops mission. It was released in 2012 and directed by Scott Waugh and Mike McCoy. The “Bandito Platoon” discovered a new terrorist plot against United States. The Seals traveled the world to hunt this man down. Being so far from home the Seals have to learn to balance their families and their mission. Each new intel they discover leads to a more intense plot as they find that the “skinnies” (name used for terrorists in the movie) are hiding out in Mexico.

For a war movie it contained well developed objective qualities. In the movie there seemed to be a well developed double plot. In the beginning of the movie it was their job to extract a woman who was being held hostage. Not much of a big deal. As the movie went on the plot thickened and became something bigger. They had to stop a man from killing thousands of Americans using a new type of explosive weapon. The directors used a new improved shot during the action scenes that really makes you feel you are in the movie. They use a point of view of one of the soldiers and have them shoot as if you were playing a video game. This movie was able to hit all aspects of emotion. From disgust, sad, happy and etc. In one scene you are able to visually see clearly and eyeball of one of the soldiers that got shot in the face. The opening scene opens the sadness when an ice cream truck goes into a school and explodes abruptly. As this scene ends there is a little boy crying in pain while in flames opening up the viewers emotions. Looking at the ratings there seems to be a lot of dislike. Rotten Tomatoes rated the movie 25%. Rotten Tomatoes also had to say, “It's undeniably reverent of the real-life heroes in its cast, but Act of Valor lets them down with a clichéd script, stilted acting, and a jingoistic attitude that ignores the complexities of war”. IMDb rated it 6.5 out of 10. With all this negative ratings how is it that it won a Golden Globe?

In my opinion I believe the actors played the best roll they could have. Its tough to find good actors that can play a war movie role. I really enjoyed the action scenes with gore and how strategic they were when approaching a mission. They really broke down the dynamics of real war. The scenes when they were with their families was very nice and how they got to say goodbyes. Even with all the negative ratings I still enjoyed it and would recommend if you like war movies.