A Pro American war movie

Michael Walsh:

After a string of anti-war, anti-military (and arguably anti-American) war movies, Hollywood finally gets it right. The Navy SEAL drama “Act of Valor” opens tomorrow in theaters nationwide. 

Starring active-duty members of the elite commando unit and based on real events, the film is a bracing reminder of the war films Tinseltown used to make — and, if it scores, will be making again. 

Why? It’s the patriotism, stupid. A bunch of flops near the end of the Bush administration — “Rendition” (CIA meanies coercing confessions), “Redacted” (US soldiers acting brutally), “In the Valley of Elah” (war’s dehumanizing effects) — was Hollywood’s way of trying to “end the war.” But the public rejected them all. As a rule, anti-war war movies just don’t sell,and “nuance” doesn't cut it on a real battlefield.

You won’t find much nuance in “Act of Valor,” which strings together modeled-on-real-life SEAL (SEa, Air, Land) operations in a Russian-Muslim plot to unleash suicide bombers on US targets. 

The straight-arrow good guys — played, at their request, by unnamed SEALs — are very good; the snarling bad guys (professional actors) are thoroughly rotten, and there’s zero time spent analyzing whether the villains’ “grievances” are legitimate or whether their daddies didn’t love them. 

The script by Kurt Johnstad starts with the kidnapping and murder of a pair of CIA agents. Next comes a daring rescue-and-extraction operation, then a psychologically chilling interrogation (notably for its complete absence of violence) and a global manhunt, including a dazzling landing aboard a surfaced sub in mid-ocean — all wrapping up in a rain of gunfire inside a smuggler’s tunnel beneath the US-Mexican border.

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I have seen the trailer on the movie and it looks promising.  I suspect it will be a hit.  I never waste my time watching anti war puke movies, but will look forward to seeing a movie that portrays to good guys as good guys.