Damn Few.
Act of Valor began life as a training video for Special Warefare Combatant Craft crewmen. After working with real Navy SEALs, filmakers Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh got several ideas for an action film. Active duty SEALs started out as advisors on the film but it quickly became clear that the only people capable of portraying the SEALs as written were… well, the SEALs themselves. And as the Navy saw this as a recruitment opportunity they required active duty SEALs to participate.
So the stars of the film are completely anonomous as their names have not and will not be released as they are currently somewhere killing someone who’s an asshole.
The movie begins as a SEAL team is sent into Columbia to rescue a CIA asset who has important information (her CIA contact has just been brutally murdered). The information is about a plot about a large scale terror attack designed to hit several US cities simultaniously. The information leads to several more missions.
The supporting cast are all actual actors, and decent ones. I especially like the Eastern bloc Muslim terrorist and his childhood friend who became an international smuggler. Though the smuggler is Jewish and their adult relationship is complicated, the smuggler is still willing to help his friend. Pretty decent job by both actors.
Obviously the SEALs are better at the action scenes than the small scenes of human interaction required by the plot. They are not actors. Although… Now that I say that, one of them is a pretty good actor. Their Senior Chief is in charge of interrogation and he’s gifted at his job. I laughed my ass off during the interrogation scene, but it’s because I’m a bad person.
The action sequences are pretty awesome, my only issue is I thought the 2nd and 3rd major sequences were too similar to each other. I would have liked to have seen a little more ninja and less rambo in at least one of them. The 1st action sequence (CIA asset extraction) might be the best of the year. And don’t discount those dudes who drive the boats. They can lay some pipe.
This is a unique movie experience, I’d give it a look if I were you.