Fridae

In action war film Act of Valor, we follow a group of elite US Navy SEALS as they undertake special missions around the globe to foil an imminent terrorist attack on home soil. As a nod to the international nature of modern terrorism, we are also introduced to a rogues gallery of unlikely villains with disparate ideologies and goals but working for the same cause. The film will have you root for the straight-talking, patriotic heroes (all of whom are played by an uncredited cast of actual serving SEALS) while marvel at the well-planned and highly tactical combat sequences where they engage with the enemy.

There's a wonderful backstory about the making of Act of Valor which explains why it is such a great action film. Basically the directors were hired by the US Navy SEALS to shoot a series of short training videos. Somewhere along the line, one of these training films for the US Navy's elite special ops force grew to become a feature film with all of the action scenes, almost all of the actors playing the SEALS, and much of the script in the film done with the input of the US Navy.

The result is a action war film that is designed to be as realistic as possible. As a bare minimum, military fans will have fun identifying the types of weapons and military hardware showcased in the film. Yet because of its beginnings as a training film for the SEALS, the missions are also a showcase for rarely-seen special ops tactics and planning, which impose a deliberateness and methodical caution to the armed engagement that we would not find in other army-funded action blockbusters.

And unlike other action blockbusters with a military theme, Act of Valor is filmed very conservatively, without the jump cuts, fast edits, nausea-inducing handycam, and rock soundtrack gimmicks that have defined this genre the past few years. Bucking this trend, Act of Valor proves that people will want to watch a well-written action film, and want to watch it without having to figure out what exactly happened in the messiness of the action.