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Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today.

Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films.

Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com/user/jsjkim, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ReThinkReviews. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant.

Act of Valor

‘Act of Valor’ stars real-life Navy SEALs, members of America’s elite special operations force, as they re-create five actual missions and tie them together with a fictional story about terrorists trying to smuggle suicide bombers with undetectable explosive vests into the US. This is an unprecedented collaboration between Hollywood and the military, which have long shared an uncomfortably cozy relationship, where in exchange for the use of military resources, studios allow their films to become tools for recruitment, public relations, and pro-war propaganda. And considering that the $12 million film made almost $25 million in it’s opening weekend, this definitely won’t be the last of such partnerships.

Supposedly, the reason why the normally attention-shy SEALs agreed to participate in the film was to provide a more accurate depiction of who the SEALs are and how they work. SEALs are entrusted with the most sensitive, dangerous, high-stakes missions — like the killing of Osama bin Laden — requiring them to be the most highly-trained, highly-disciplined soldiers in the military, with a reputation for quiet professionalism.

It’s important to show people, especially impressionable kids, that the SEALs aren’t bloodthirsty, unstable, rebellious hotshots like you often see in movies. The problem is that it makes the SEALs in ‘Act of Valor’ kind of boring, which is not helped by the fact that the SEALs are, predictably, not terribly good actors, and very little is revealed about their backstories. Audiences are drawn to emotion, conflict, idiosyncratic personalities, and characters we can relate to, but you don’t get much of that in ‘Act of Valor’. In fact, the most interesting characters are the two villains, an Islamic Chechen terrorist and a Jewish smuggler (who are both played by actors).

The action scenes in ‘Act of Valor’ were designed by the SEALs and use up-to-date technology, tactics, and weaponry. It’s pretty amazing seeing how the world’s most elite soldiers work, including their meticulous planning, the jargon they use, how they avoid detection, and how they improvise when plans go south. The SEALs have an attitude and way of moving that would be nearly impossible for actors to replicate, and some of the scenes even use live ammunition.

But, there’s a problem with this, too, since the SEALs are supported and often saved by THE LARGEST MILITARY IN THE WORLD. In most movies, you root for the scrappy underdog to beat their big, rich, powerful opponent, and while I’m not saying that we should be rooting for the bad guys in ‘Act of Valor’, the SEALs represent that advantaged opponent. While the SEALs are definitely risking their lives, the guys they’re fighting against don’t stand a chance against such overwhelming firepower and logistical support. It’s a little like watching someone gamble and rooting for the house to win.

But while watching ‘Act of Valor’, I was always cognizant of the fact that I was seeing EXACTLY what the Navy wanted me to see, and that a large part of the film’s goal is to convince young men to enlist by focusing on exciting action, not the justness of the foreign policy it’s serving. The film has an abundance of footage shot from helmet-mounted cameras, and while this might’ve been a creative decision, the result is footage that looks almost exactly like what you’d see in a first person shooter video game like the ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘Battlefield’ franchises. These games have been so successful at raising recruitment that the Pentagon actually created it’s own game, America’s Army, which it distributes for free.

Unfortunately, the military’s deep involvement with ‘Act of Valor’ calls everything about it into question, like whether there are political motivations behind highlighting tunnels under the Mexican border, or why one of the villains is a Jew with a big nose who’s so greedy that he’s willing to sell out to radical Islamists. The unimpeachable portrayal of the SEALs also seems to promote the dangerous American trend of soldier worship, where all soldiers are considered heroes and we should “support the troops no matter what”, which usually becomes “support the war and don’t reduce their budget no matter what”.

Even without the military’s involvement, ‘Act of Valor’ has serious flaws, and as a nearly two-hour government-sponsored recruiting tool, it’ll leave you feeling like it’s designed to sell kids, or you, a very dangerous product.

‘Act of Valor’ is rated R and is in theaters now.