I don’t have time to wax poetic about the new movie Act of Valor. You should just go see it yourself. That said, I do have a few thoughts. I will buy this film on DVD. I will take my kids–bloody as this film is–to see it. I want my husband to see it.

If you’re looking for active duty Navy SEALS to be academy award winning actors this movie will only slightly disappoint. I’m pretty sure it was easier to get these guys to deliver a few lines than it was to get actors buffed and up to speed in SEAL tactics. So if you’re looking for a clinic on some of the ways in which these deadly warriors do their jobs with as-serious-as-a-heart-attack methods interspersed with steely camaraderie then you’ll love this film. You will be awed. It’s as it should be.

You may know the story already. This started out as a Navy recruitment film (not true the producer/directors told me! It was always going to be a feature). But when the director and producer began filming they realized it should be a


feature. And they soon figured out that the best thing to do was to have the real guys be the subjects of the film. The producers say their thought was to do a Top Gun type movie and replace Tom Cruise with a real guy. This film is so much better. The cinematography is spectacular. The main actors are the SEALS interspersed with actors. The events are real. The fright is real.

Some of the filming was done by Navy photogs. The underwater and jumping scenes were breathtaking. No stuntmen were needed. The producers of the film say they wouldn’t be able to find stuntmen to do what the SEALS can do.  The heavy breathing of the camera operators made me feel as if I were in the room.  I’m glad they used it.

The producer and director had unprecedented access to the warriors and the shoot last 50 days over a two year period. That’s because the SEALS deployment schedules got in the way of Hollywood.

That brings me to the most chilling part of the movie. All the incidents depicted are based on true events. From the kidnapping of a CIA agent to jihadists working with Russian mobsters to smuggle Filipino suicide bombers through Mexican smuggling tunnels. All of it is based on actual experiences. For all you lefties who have called people like me crazy about jihadists on the border I want you to shut your piehole. Now. “My s*** filter’s full.”

The names of the SEALS are real but they’re not the people who were in the film. The names used for those in the film are the names of SEALS killed in the line of duty.  A respectful, smart touch.

I watched the movie in a special screening last night. There were some military families present. At the end of the film there was audible weeping by some.

I stayed till the very end of the credits. I wasn’t the only one.

Few films will portray with such vividness the valorous acts of these men who work in our service.

Damn Few.

Trailer:

The song that will make you cry at the end? This one: