Act of Valor

In Manila a terrorist assassinates the United States Ambassador to the Philippines, and also kills his son and dozens of children at an international primary school, using an ice cream truck to lure the children then detonating. The mastermind, a Chechen terrorist, Abu Shabal, escapes to a training camp in Indonesia. Elsewhere in Costa Rica, two CIA officers, Walter Ross and Lisa Morales, meet to consolidate intelligence about their target, a drug smuggler named Mikhail "Christo" Troykovich. Christo's men kill Ross and capture Morales, who is imprisoned in a jungle compound and tortured.

At Coronado, the members of Bandito Platoon, SEAL Team 7 are at home. Lieutenant Rorke confides to Chief Dave that his wife is pregnant and has the entire team spend time together with their families until their next deployment. A squad from the platoon consisting of Rorke, Dave, Wiemy, Mikey, Ray, Sonny, and Ajay, is then deployed to Costa Rica to exfiltrate Morales.

The seven Navy SEALs insert into the jungle via HALO and hold position outside the compound all night. At dawn, they approach the compound and engage several enemy guards. Mikey is shot in the head, blinding him in one eye, and knocking him unconscious, though he survives. The SEALs extract Morales, escaping with her and recovering a cellphone full of the information she had gathered. However, the gunfight alerts the enemy quick reaction force. The SEALs commandeer an enemy truck and exfiltrate. The hot pursuit forces them to revert to a tertiary extraction point where two SWCC boats extract the team and neutralize the enemy pursuit with miniguns.

Christo and Shabal, who are revealed to have been childhood friends, meet in Kyiv. Christo knows the CIA is watching him and informs Shabal that subordinates will complete their project, which is to equip suicide bombers with specialized undetectable explosive vests.

On the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard, Rorke is informed that the intelligence recovered confirms Shabal and Christo were working together. Shabal, an old-school Islamic terrorist, seeks to bring jihad to the U.S., while Christo provides the routes for smuggling drugs and people into the U.S. Ajay and Ray are sent to Somalia, where an arms transfer involving Shabal is taking place. The remaining SEALs, comprising Rorke, Dave, Sonny and Weimy, stay in the U.S. in case the terrorists make it in. Miller himself has been reassigned to SEAL Team Four, hunting for Christo somewhere on the oceans. Lieutenant Rorke gives Dave a letter to give to his family in case he is killed.

Shabal and sixteen terrorists are found to be on an island off Baja California, where the SEALs act to secure the island, killing eight terrorists. Shabal and eight others escape. Elsewhere, in the South Pacific, SEAL Team Four captures Christo and interrogate him, learning that Shabal's plot is to create panic and economic disruption to outdo the September 11 attacks.

The SEALs are informed that Shabal is en route to the U.S. via tunnels underneath a milk factory, and are ordered to link up with Mexican Special Forces and neutralize the remaining targets. Arriving at the factory, the SEALs and Mexican forces launch an assault there, engaging numerous Mexican cartel and Shabal's terrorists in the process. During the gunfight, a combatant throws a grenade, and Rorke sacrifices himself by diving on it to save his team before it detonates, killing him. Dave pursues the terrorists and shoots them as they try to escape through the tunnels. He is then shot several times and gravely wounded by Shabal, who is intercepted and killed by Sonny before he could execute Dave.

At home, Rorke is given a military funeral with full honors, where the SEALs pay their respects. It is then revealed that Dave's narration throughout the movie was a written letter meant for Rorke's son. The film ends with a dedication to 60 U.S. Navy SEAL and Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewmen (SWCC) killed in action since 9/11 along with a listing of their names as well as a photo montage of fallen public servants.

• Jason Cottle as Yuri / Mohammad Abu Shabal, a Chechen terrorist

• Rorke Denver as Lieutenant Rorke James Engel, field commander of SEAL Team 7
• Dave Hansen as Chief Dave Nolan, a Chief of SEAL Team 7
• Sonny Manson as Sonny, a member of SEAL Team 7
• Brendan “Weimy” Weimholt as 'Weimy', a member of SEAL Team 7
• Ajay "A.J." James as Ajay, a member of SEAL Team 7
• Ray Mendoza as Ray, a member of SEAL Team 7
• Douglas “Mike” Day as Mikey, a member of SEAL Team 7
• Katelyn Lyons as Lieutenant Lyons, a US Navy officer (the real character serves in the U.S. Army)
• William "Bill" Austin as SWCC Boat Senior Chief Billy
• Duncan Smith as Captain Duncan Smith
• Callaghan as Admiral Callaghan (the true character name is Rear Admiral Dennis Moynihan)
• Alex Veadov as Mikhail 'Christo' Troykovich,[4] a drug smuggler working with Shabal
• Roselyn Sánchez as CIA officer Lisa Morales
• Nestor Serrano as CIA officer Walter Ross
• Emilio Rivera as Sanchez, a head cartel thug
• Ernie Reyes Jr. as Recruit, a Filipino jihadist suicide bomber recruited by Shabal to launch terrorist attacks over the States
• Drea Castro as Recruit, a Filipino jihadist suicide bomber recruited by Shabal to launch terrorist attacks over the States
• Marissa Labog as Recruit, a Filipino jihadist suicide bomber recruited by Shabal to launch terrorist attacks over the States
• Keo Woolford as Recruit, a Filipino jihadist suicide bomber recruited by Shabal to launch terrorist attacks over the States
• Thomas Rosales, Jr. as Christo's RHM
• Antoni Corone as yacht henchman
• Gonzalo Menendez as Commander Pedros, a Mexican Special Forces commander who teams up with the SEAL Team to take down Shabal
• Ailsa Marshall as Jackie Engel, Lieutenant Engel's wife
• Derrick Van Orden as Senior Chief Otto Miller

Act of Valor was scheduled to be released on February 17, 2012 in the U.S. to coincide with Presidents' Day,[5] but was pushed back to February 24, 2012.[13] The film was released in the UK and Ireland on March 23 as Act of Valour by Momentum Pictures.

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 28% based on 144 reviews with an average rating of 4.54/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It's undeniably reverent of the real-life heroes in its cast, but Act of Valor lets them down with a clichéd script, stilted acting, and a jingoistic attitude that ignores the complexities of war."[16] Metacritic assigned the film an average score of 40 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[17] Audiences on CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A", on an A+ to F scale.[18]

The film opened at #1 at the box office, earning $24.5 million in its opening weekend from 3,039 theaters for an average of $8,054 per theater.

Many reviews, both positive and negative, expressed praise for the action sequences while criticizing the plot and acting. Claudia Puig from USA Today, for example, said the action in the film is "breathtaking," but gave the film an overall negative review, in which she wrote that "the soldiers' awkward line readings are glaring enough to distract from the potency of the story."[19] Similarly, Amy Biancolli from the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "Act of Valor is intended to wow audiences with high-test action while planting a giant wet kiss on the smacker of the U.S. military – and it scores at both tasks," but that, ultimately, "the film gets snagged by its own narrative convention."[20] Michael Rechtshaffen from The Hollywood Reporter had a similar opinion, stating, "Although the film has its undeniably immersive, convincing moments, the merging of dramatic re-creations and on-camera 'performances' proves less seamlessly executed than those masterfully coordinated land, sea and air missions."[21]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two and a half out of four stars, and complained that "we don't get to know the characters as individuals, they don't have personality traits, they have no back stories, they don't speak in colorful dialogue, and after the movie you'd find yourself describing events but not people."[22] The film was accused of having an antisemitic subtext by bloggers Debbie Schlussel[23] and Pamela Geller[24] as well as other Jewish sources.[25]

Relativity Media released the film's soundtrack on February 21, 2012. It includes 10 songs by country music artists. The first cut on the soundtrack, Keith Urban's "For You", was released as a single. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.[3]

• List of films featuring the United States Navy SEALs

• Jurgensen, John (August 25, 2011). "Hollywood Tries a New Battle Plan". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 18, 2012.
• Sirota, David (February 24, 2012). "The Pentagon's amnesia-inducing propaganda". Salon.com. Retrieved August 9, 2012.

• Act of Valor at IMDb
• Act of Valor at AllMovie
• Act of Valor at Box Office Mojo
• Act of Valor at Rotten Tomatoes
• Act of Valor at Metacritic