Act of Valor: "Sure it's real, but it's not interesting."

     While watching the navy recruitment movie/action flick Act of Valor, I was reminded of an interview done with Jack Nicholson while he was filming The Shining. He is describing working on scene with director Stanley Kubrick. At some point he wanted to do something in the scene because it was more "realistic". Kubrick simply replied, "Sure it's real, but it's not interesting."

     Act of Valor is less than a real movie. By all accounts it began its life as promotional short to entice young people into joining the navy. While there are real navy SEALS and they do dangerous and exciting things, my guess is the other 99.9999999% of the navy's ranks are doing things that are not quite as sexy or interesting. At some point, the decision was made to expand the promo film into a full length feature for theatrical release. The big pull for the movie is the use of "real active duty SEALs" in the lead roles. Yes, the lead actors in the film are indeed real live navy SEALs.  As actors, they are...real live navy SEALs.

     The plot of the movie is, by all accounts, a variety of real missions shoehorned together to create 110 minutes that reminds me of the pulp novels published by Gold Eagle in the 80's like Mack Bolan, Able Team, and Phoenix Force.  The bad guys are bad and do obviously bad things, the good guys are good and have families and kick ass and take names. 

     On the plus side, writer Kurt Johnstad worked with the SEALs to create action sequences that are quite well staged and shot.  This is where having real live navy SEALs really pays off.  They are in alarmingly good physical shape, and bring a level of skill and agility that no actor or even stuntman could pull off.  And because its basically a recruitment film, the navy happily provided access to armoured patrol boats, helicopters, aircraft carriers, planes, and, in one memorable sequence, a nuclear submarine.  It also means this one of the only films to ever use live ammunition (and lots of it) for the action scenes.  Normally, I'd find this stupid and totally unprofessional.  But the people doing the shooting are active duty navy SEALs, and they are navy SEALs because they hit what they aim at, and nothing else, every time.

     The film is also an example of the benefits and limitations of shooting with DSLR's like the Canon 5D and the GoPro action cameras.  Using small, cheap cameras allows for a lot of coverage and lots of POV shots looking along the barrel of assault rifles.  DP Shane "I was looking at the light" Hurlbut (Best known for incurring the wrath of Christian Bale on Terminator: Salvation), got lots of shots, but the quality varies pretty drastically.  You can get away with dropping in the odd GoPro or 5D shot here and there, but when the bulk of your coverage is shot with them, its going to look wonky.  In all fairness, I don't know if there would have been any other way to get some of the shots, but the digital noise and smearing shutter starts to wear on you.

     Now, I have a great deal of respect for the men in this film.  They are some of the most elite warriors alive today and they do incredibly hard, dangerous stuff all the time where lots of people are trying to kill them.  And frankly, they do an admiral job of handling the "boring, talky" bits of the movie that are required to explain why and who they're going to blow up.  And frankly, with all they've accomplished in their real lives, not being good enough actors to get through the terrible dialogue they have to spew is not worth sweating.

     And that's where things fall apart.  You need actors with the skills of Nick Cage to get through the awful dialogue in this movie.  And these guys are no Nick Cages.  Yes, the action is realistic and it is exciting.  Although the editing could be better.  But everything else has a forced, affected tone to it that just comes off like a bad montage in a Michael Bay movie.

    The other problem is the cast beyond the SEALs.  They are, at best cartoon characters in there conception and performance.  The main bad guy, Shabal, played by Jason Cottle, is introduced to us and he hijacks an ice cream truck, drives it into a private school, and walks slowly away from it as it explodes, killing dozens of small children.  He does the whole "Cool guys don't look at explosions" thing just in case you weren't sure he wasn't really bad.  He spends the rest of the movie being a really bad, really angry, bad guy. 

     The only actor I'd seen before watching this movie was Nestor Serrano, who is quite good for the two scenes he's in before getting shot in the face.  Every dialogue-based scene in this movie is painful to watch.  What makes that confusing is that the SEALs don't say very much.  Sure they have to wade through the macho bonding scenes before the action so you can feel something for them when they are put at risk.  But all the other non-SEAL parts are performed horribly.  I don't know if the filmmakers were worried if the other cast members were good actors that they would make the SEALs look bad, or they actually thought the SEALs were brilliant and set the bar accordingly.

     The other problem with Act of Valor is that it isn't really a movie.  It's a commercial for the navy.  So, unlike a film like David Mamet's Spartan, which is about a special ops guy being sold out by the power structure that uses him, or Black Hawk Down, which while Army supported at least shows the confusion of command and the foolishness of war by committee, Act of Valor never once shows the SEALs or the superior officers put a foot wrong.  This denies the film all kinds of potential conflicts that would make for an interesting story.

     Which comes around to the quip from Kubrick.  Maybe the missions do really happen that way for the SEALs, maybe that's how they talk in briefings.  But if it is, then real ain't interesting.
     

     

 

Things I love from America

The Gibson Les Paul Standard, Twinkies, the Colt M1911A1, the 1967 fastback Mustang, monster trucks, the Drive-In movie theatre, Panavision C-series anamorphic lenses, the Ford big-block V8, the Chevy small-block V8, the Chrysler Hemi, Tur-duck-en, the Bowie knife, Vise-Grips, Shaker furniture, the Springfield M-14, Top-fuel drag racers, Cheese Combos, the Lockheed A-12/SR-71, Coca-Cola, the Smith and Wesson Scofield revolver, the drive-thru window, the B-52 stratofortress, Jiffy-Pop popcorn, the A-10 Warthog, nuclear weapons, Time-Life books, the Sawzall, and Hammond B-3 organ.

Stay classy America