Consider for a moment that being a Navy SEAL were a unionized,
private sector job. Just how much per hour would you have to pay to
get guys to do what Navy SEALs do?
I don’t believe there’s that much money in the world. You
won’t either after you’ve watched Act of Valor, which I
strongly recommend that you do (unless you don’t do well with
violence — which is not gratuitous in this movie, but
graphic).
Fortunately for us, the young Americans who have what it
takes to be SEALs and are willing to take it on don’t do it for the
money. Working for the Navy is a living, but hardly an extravagant
one. The job description for a Navy SEAL, however, is about the
most extravagant one on the planet. The training to qualify the
small number of men who make this uber-select fraternity is
probably the toughest in the world. Few are called, even fewer
chosen.
SEALs have to be smart, strong, brave, durable, tenacious,
emotionally centered, highly skilled, willing to work fantastically
hard, and totally dedicated to doing things human beings should
probably not be called on to do. And SEALs have to be patriots. If
not, there are just too many other ways to make a living on this
earth that don’t make the gaudy demands that the training, the
work, and the life of a Navy SEAL place on SEALs and on the people
who love them. America is blessed to have men like
these.
Act of Valor is a movie about SEALs
at work. It opened last Friday and in its first weekend led all
movies at the box office, taking in $24.7 million, twice its meager
production costs, half again what the second place movie took in,
and almost twice as much as industry experts had predicted it would
take in.
While some Americans last Sunday (a smaller number than in
past years) watched an industry that for decades has been devoted
to dissing America and American values passing out awards to its
practitioners, many for movies involving pretend heroes, a host of
other Americans were in theaters watching real American heroes on
the screen. The central characters in Valor are real Navy
SEALs, not actors. Scott Waugh, one of Valor’s filmmakers
said there is no way actors could authentically portray the
intensity, the aura, and the complexity of Navy SEALs, so they got
the real guys to do it. None of your Charlie Sheen
nonsense.
Valor, starring a half-dozen unnamed
heroes turned in its boffo box office performance with little help
from the critics, most of whom didn’t like the movie or its
message. Folks who count these sorts of things told USA
Today that only about 30 percent of critics who wrote about
the movie reviewed it favorably. The word “jingoistic” was deployed
in more than one review. Another sniffed that the movie (and by
inference SEALs, as the movie shows realistically what they do)
“ignores the complexities of war.”
Well, yes, as the movies shows, SEALs are very good at
overwhelming complexities. Not to mention nuances. (If a SEAL
encountered a nuance on the battlefield, he would likely give it a
short burst and step over it.)
Hollywood, and the industry that has grown up around it,
including critics, used to celebrate America and brave American
warriors. Since about, oh, Bonnie and Clyde, it has taken
to celebrating other things. Now the favored approach is to look
down on American institutions, particularly the military. So it was
no surprise that fewer than a third of critics liked the movie. It
was also no surprise that in a still patriotic America, about 85
percent of audience members who were asked for their reaction after
the movie gave it a thumbs-up.
Not all the criticisms of the movie are baseless. Some
complained that the dialogue is a bit wooden as the central
characters are not actors. Point taken. Though much of the talk
sounded like real sailors to me. I was one decades ago, though in
the length of my honorable but undistinguished service I never did
anything as vigorous or as dangerous as the typical Navy SEAL does
any day before noon chow.
Another complaint is that the story in Valor is
thin. That the movie is mostly a recruiting tool and a SEAL
appreciation exercise. Without giving away much, I’ll say the movie
involves one rescue operation and then an attempt to stop a
determined group of jihadists from entering the United States and
committing gross acts of terrorism. The story is certainly as
involved as that of your average segment of TV action fare and most
action movies. But the action in this one is both heart-pounding
and realistic. About as realistic as can be made. And intelligent
in a way the latest Bruce Willis machine gun opera just
isn’t.
In addition to the story line, the movie is strengthened
by its themes of courage, sacrifice, patriotism, devotion, victory
and loss. Any movie-goer who still believes America is a basically
good country worth defending, and appreciates those who put it all
on the line to do so, will have a hard time leaving this one with a
dry eye.
Valor was three years in the making.
Production schedules were interfered with when the movie’s “stars”
were called away for overseas missions. We don’t know where the
SEALs we saw in the movie are today. Could they at this minute be
putting themselves at great risk for our advantage? Wherever they
are, this moviegoer can only say, “God bless, God’s speed, and
please accept my inadequate thanks for your service.”
