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Review: Act Of Valor Is A Clumsily-Made Piece Of Pro-War Propaganda

The publicity material for Act of Valor calls it "an unprecedented blend of real-life heroism and original filmmaking," and the film was apparently intended to give a real-life portrayal of life as a Navy SEAL.

You may have heard of the film before, and if so then you've probably heard people saying that the trailer makes it look like a piece of pro-military, pro-American propaganda, and that is precisely what it is. This fact makes it difficult to review, so I'm going to deal with the propaganda issue before getting into the filmmaking. Namely, what makes it propaganda, and why these elements are detrimental to the film.

For what it's worth, there is a definite sense that somewhere in the gestation period of Act of Valor, there was an intent to accurately capture the life of a Navy SEAL and to create a tribute to those lost in combat, which makes it all the more tragic that what ended up on the screen is such an awful, insulting, over-simplified mess.

The two heroes are necessarily strong, healthy, fertile, heterosexual white Americans with beautiful wives and loving children. They are called into action, first to rescue a Mexican woman who has been kidnapped and is being tortured by terrorists, and then to further combat the terrorists as they attempt to plant suicide bombers in major American cities. There's a frequently reiterated message in the film that the soldiers are fighting to protect America and her freedoms, as well as their own families, and it would be hard to fit that in with the soldiers being called away to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, then, we get this strange "It'll be like 9/11 but ten times worse!" synchronised suicide bombing plot that feels more like something you'd find in a James Bond film.

There are two main antagonists, both Russians, one a Jew and one a Jihadi with a pack of trained mute Filipino Jihadist suicide bombers whom he essentially uses like hand grenades because while he thinks Allah is great and all, he's not quite dedicated enough to blow himself up. The Jew, Christo (Alex Zeadov), has somehow managed to turn suicide-bombing into some kind of profit-making scheme. He sits around on expensive yachts, covered in expensive jewellery, complaining about "Ameeericans interfeeering viz how I make a living."

During a particularly uncomfortable scene, Christo is confronted by a member of the CIA, who baldly states the horrors of a Jew and a Muslim working together. I won't say that the film is out-and-out racist, but I'm sure the choice of Russian villains was made to play on some kind of Cold War nostalgia, and since they are both portrayed simply as "terrorists, therefore evil," we never get any real insight into their characters.

The same goes for our so-called heroes, whom we are supposed to empathise with because we see them kissing their wives and children goodbye, drinking manly beers together on the beach, slapping each other on the back and engaging in forced banter. But because they have to be pure heroes, they never experience any kind of dilemma or show weakness. The film comes across as some kind of teenage wet dream based on abstracted ideals that Navy SEALs are supposed to represent, with the result that the two main characters are absolutely perfect and completely dull.

The pro-American slant of it can be fantastically entertaining at times though, and if nothing else the propaganda aspect of the film gives it some unintentionally hilarious moments. My personal favourite – and I may have to watch it a second time to check that I actually saw it – was during an action scene, a soldier gets hit with a bullet but is saved because it is slowed by the American flag on the chest of his uniform. Outstanding.

The overarching message of the film is this: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." The final scene chilled me to the bone in all the wrong ways, going so far in the direction of pro-war propaganda that it actually comes out the other side and becomes a powerful statement against war. The audience is left with the image of a baby grinning and gurgling in blissful ignorance as a voiceover states that it is his patriotic duty to one day go to war and die for his country. The film ends with a dedication to all those who have fought and died for their country … and to those who will be required to do so in the future. Perhaps the intent was positive, but the result is deeply unsettling.

But enough of that nonsense! At the end of the day, is Act of Valor a good film?

Nope. The entire film basically evokes the experience of sitting around watching someone else play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. So much so that I feel like calling up Infinity Ward and telling them to ask for a cut of the film's profit. The biggest innovation that directors Mike McCoy and Steve Waugh bring to the table is the decision to show a great deal of the action sequences using a POV shot down the barrel of the weapon being used, whether it's a sniper rifle or an assault rifle. Remember the sniper section from COD: MW? That's in there. The section where you ride in the back of a jeep shooting at other vehicles with a rocket launcher? That's in there. A scene near the end of the film was so closely modelled on the final scene of Modern Warfare that I had to pinch myself to make sure I hadn't fallen asleep and started dreaming about happier times.

The main difference is that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare had interesting characters and some great bits of writing, whereas Act of Valor has neither.

The decision to use real Navy SEALs was also a decision to use non-actors, and it shows in all the wrong ways. Their dialogue consists almost entirely of military jargon that is difficult to penetrate and not worth the effort if you do, and the moments of "friendly banter" are so awkward that they actually detract from the formation of the characters rather contribute to it.

So that's Act of Valor. It was like watching the formation of a pearl in reverse: a genuinely pure and respectable original intention that gathered muck and dirt around it and grew into a big ugly ball of clumsily-inserted political agenda, borderline racism, a fantastically boring story, and extremely forgettable characters. Good for a despairing laugh and not much more.

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