This next review is for another action film although this one doesn't star Dolph or Jean Claude but real active duty Navy Seals. Act Of Valour is it's name and i didn't really like it. Find out why after the jump..
I'm not the biggest
gamer in the world but when I do pick up a control pad or a slam my
fingers on the keyboard for a game, the sort of games I usually play
are the ones where I can walk around shooting people by pretending to
be in the army because, let's be honest, anyone who knows me knows
full well that I wouldn't last 3 seconds in a real combat situation,
so playing games like Battlefield or Call Of Duty is pure fantasy for
someone like me. Well There's this new film called Act Of Valour
which takes my video game fantasies and puts them on the screen in
real life action movie style. It stars real active U.S Seals and
features some truly hardcore action scenes. But is it meant as
entertainment or as a million+ dollar recruitment video for the
Seals. Well below is my look at this film, a film that they could
have called Call Of Duty: Movie Warfare...
'When the bullets start
flying, stay the fuck down' is a line you would most commonly find in
an action movie, Act Of Valour is more like 'When the bullets start
flying, shoot back because America ain't full of pussies and this is
how we get shit done', so a film about America's elite special forces
is going to have a lot of flying bullets and a lot of shit getting
done by some real life bad ass's, this film is pretty much just a
series of high octane, brilliantly staged tactical assaults that
wouldn't be out of place in a Call Of Duty video game, but unlike the
games, Act Of Valour has an incredibly weak plot that is literally
strung together by some blistering action sequences. The plot follows
the U.S seal team 6 who are sent to rescue a female C.I A operative
played by Rosalyn Sanchez who is probably the only known member of
the cast. They discover that some Russian and some other Russian
turned Jihadist are planning on blowing up America so it's time to
rock and roll and take these sons-a-bitches out, Navy Seal style.
Another strand of the plot which is so incredibly clichéd is that
one of the seals is a soon to be father so you know from minute one
that this guy is fucked. For me as a casual gamer, the campaign modes
of games like COD and Battlefield are what gets me excited when i'm
playing a game because of the detailed, well thought out plots but
Act Of Valour doesn't have any of that and struggles with it's
confusing plot of terrorists planning a mass terrorist attack,
sometimes it feels forced and it doesn't help that the entire main
cast are non actors as they're all off duty Navy Seals. Another major
problem with the script is all the technical jargon spouted by the
seals which, unless you're actually part of the military, you're
going to have a hard time understanding.
I don't understand how
films such as Black Hawk Down, Green Zone and even to an extent
Battle: Los Angeles can use military style combat scenarios and also
make them entertaining, yes most of the time they are very
Pro-American and make out that they are the greatest most hardcore
nation on earth and for all the in your face patriotism, the films
still entertain. Act Of Valour is more of a chore to sit through than
enjoy and does come across as U.S propaganda at times. The acting is
non existent and drags the film down and it only really comes alive
during the fantastic action scenes that include a brilliantly staged
rescue, escape and evac in which live rounds were used and the final
Mexico gun battle is also exceptionally done but a few good action
scenes in a film that runs for 109minutes doesn't make a good film.
The film will appeal to people as it does feature real U.S seals and
the great action sequences but when you've seen films like Black Hawk
Down and Green Zone, does Act Of Valour give us anything else,
anything fresh that we've not seen before? Yes and no, we've never
seen real soldier doing there stuff apart from when it's shown in
documentaries or on the news, so that was the freshest element of
film but we've seen this kind of movie before. In 1990, director
Lewis Teague gave us Navy Seals, an all action extravaganza with a
cast that included Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton but
while that film flopped in 1990, today it's seen as a guilty pleasure
much like Chuck Norris' Delta Force or Missing In Action. Action
movies about military personnel can work if there's a good script and
well directed action sequences. Act Of Valour has one of those
elements and fails miserably on it's piss poor script and acting.
At the end of the day,
what it really comes down to is this...Is Act Of Valour an action
movie or a recruitment video, for me it's the latter but others might
find it the former, i've seen a shit load of action films over my 28
years on this planet and have been entertained and turned off by
some, unfortunately this falls into the turned off category. While
it's well directed, the script is atrocious and the acting is
incredibly bad, I understand why the directors (yes there were two of
the,) decided to use real Navy Seals, to get the authenticity, but
they could have used actors and a better script. I've seen more
enjoyable DTV movies than this. For me this was a major let down and
it kind of pissed me off a little. Anyway i'm giving it two stars....
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