Recruiting Film Turns Into ‘Act Of Valor’

"Act of Valor" is a feature-length film about a team of Navy SEALs who are charged with finding a kidnapped CIA agent, which in turn, leads them on a mission to stop terrorists planning a series of suicide bombings in cities across the United States. But the project began not as a movie but as a recruiting initiative, an unorthodox circumstance that makes "Act of Valor" unique among post-9/11 war flicks.

But in these tight budgetary times, a recruiting effort turned into a major motion picture might raise the wrong eyebrows, and the Navy is working hard to downplay whatever concerns might arise that "Act of Valor," which features active duty SEALs in lead roles, wasted ever-limited resources.

"All evolutions you see in the movie involving ranges, vessels, aircraft, and submarines were part of regularly scheduled training and were at no cost to the Navy or American taxpayers," the Navy's Office of Information said in a statement. "The Navy will not financially profit from AOV."

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The statement goes on to explain how AOV came to be from an official point of view: "AOV is the end result of a recruiting initiative launched by the Navy Special Warfare community in response to the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review that directed a significant increase in special operations forces.  AOV is an approach to recruiting that addresses the SEALs critical manning issue and aims to inspire the next generation of Navy recruits to consider service in the NSW community."

It's safe to say that no other Hollywood production in the history of film has its roots in a QDR.

Basically, "Act of Valor" is the movie that Navy SEALs (and their families) would make if they had the means to do so. And in this case, the means was provided by directors Mike "Mouse" McCoy and Scott Waugh, known collectively as "the Bandito Brothers."

McCoy enjoyed a hugely successful career in motorcycle racing before picking up a camera and Waugh has strong roots in the stuntman community, so neither partner has a traditional Hollywood director's background. That focus on authentic action led them to believe that they could more easily coax acting performances out of SEALs than they could teach actors to convincingly carry out the missions they wanted to portray onscreen.

AOV was shot outside the system. All of the money was raised independently and Relativity studios didn't get involved after the May 2011 Osama bin Laden mission in Pakistan, which allowed the directors to focus on Navy input far more than they would have if they'd been working in a more traditional Hollywood setting. 

"We really started to connect with the community and say they can have a hand in everything in the film," said McCoy during an exclusive interview with Military.com. "All the operational planning was done by the teams on a day-to-day basis. We [wrote] dialog together. We really set course on making it truly authentic and legit and accurately representing the brotherhood."

The Bandito Brothers hired 300 screenwriter Kurt Johnstad to attempt to weave together a coherent script based on the stories they'd collected from their SEAL collaborators.  The result is light on backstory and focuses more on moving the plot forward than any extensive character development.

The way the AOV project evolved explains the movie's shortcomings. Real Navy SEALs are not professional actors and their performances in the movie demonstrate that, at times to distraction.  Recruiting films generally don't care about characters or plot, and what starts as an intriguing portrayal of the nefarious characters that would do us harm on a grand scale is rendered subordinate to the action sequences.

And maybe -- in terms of impact and commercial success -- ultimately those shortcomings won't matter because the action sequences are impressive. Action sequences were all created real-time with zero post-production computer effects. There's evidence of the Bandito Brothers extreme sports filmmaking roots and a definite influence from the POV style used in modern video games like "Call of Duty."

Every SEAL mission area is featured in luxurious visual detail -- from HALO to high value boarding search and seizure to SEAL delivery vehicle ops. And veteran special operations bloggers who've attended pre-opening screenings have unanimously gone on the record saying that AOV "gets it right" from a technical and operational point of view.

Military families also appear happy with the effort. "I think it's safe to say that this is the first movie I've ever seen that has thrilled me by the way it portrays military families," said Amy Bushatz, managing editor of Spousebuzz.com and an Army wife. "This is the first time I've ever felt my life accurately represented by Hollywood."

So if "Act of Valor" proves to be a box office smash will this open the floodgates for other SEAL movies?

"I hope, personally, to be 'one and done' with the sanctioned movie business for awhile," Rear Admiral Sean Prybus, head of Navy Special Warfare, said at the AFCEA West convention in San Diego a few weeks ago. "Navy Special Warfare is challenged in this environment -- with the media exposure -- and the number of public domain transactions. Operational security matters to us. We, as a community, are not used to operating under such a spotlight."