A soldier prepares for action in Act Of Valour.
(MA15+) **
Director: Mike McCoy & Scott Waugh.
Cast: Jason Cottle, Alex Veadov, Roselyn Sánchez, Nestor Serrano, plus active duty U.S. Navy SEALs and U.S. Navy Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen.
BACK in 1986, the box office success and mass appeal of Top Gun boosted Navy enlistments by 500 per cent.
Faced with ongoing, resource-draining armed conflicts in the Middle East, the Navy are trying to repeat the Top Gun effect by putting together Act Of Valour, the most expensive recruitment video ever made.
And that's not just a cynical take on this film - it's a fact. The Navy has freely admitted that Act Of Valour was one of their new initiatives aimed at trying to attract the next wave of Navy SEALs.
As a result, we have a movie that boasts "real soldiers and real action" merged with a fictional storyline and staged drama.
Unfortunately, it still feels like a recruitment video.
The story follows a group of Navy SEALs as they rescue a deep-cover agent from a Costa Rican drug smuggler. In the process they uncover a link to a terrorist hellbent on sneaking suicide bombers into the US.
As the soldiers follow the trail from Central America to Africa and finally to Mexico as they race to prevent the jihadists getting on American soil.
Act Of Valour is a bold attempt to show what SEALs do and how they do it, and that part of the film is interesting, but given the number of films that have military experts involved to help provide authenticity, it's not totally new.
Involving real soldiers, such as the stars "Lieutenant Rorke" and "Chief Dave" (no real names are given), is the ultimate in authenticity, and even if they struggle in the dramatic scenes at least the action sequences feel real.
But that's where things get weird. By mixing certain realities - "real soldiers and real action" - with obvious fiction makes it hard to suspend your disbelief and get into the film.
Equally impeding is the lack of interesting characters. We don't really get to know the soldiers beyond knowing superficial information, such as one has kids and one has a pregnant wife, but with no development they come across as faceless and sadly forgettable.
At it's best, Act Of Valour has some good performances from the non-soldiers and some good firefights. At it's worst, it's reminiscent of the fist-pumping soundtrack from Team America or watching someone else play Call Of Duty or Medal Of Honour.
The SEALs should stick to saving the world, and the movie makers should look at the differences between a movie and a recruitment video.