U. S. Navy SEALS can do anything — except act

Real- life Navy SEALS play the warriors in Act of Valour, which is a sort of extended recruitment video that shows these fearsome commandos at work — blasting away with hightech weaponry at “foreign nationals” — and at play, where they say things like, “It’s hotter than two rats screwing in a wool sock.”

That’s about it for the play. The United States Navy’s Special Warfare Command approved Act of Valour, and the United States Navy is not in the habit of fooling around.

Act of Valour thus comes to Canadian cinemas as a real oddity: a good old- fashioned American propaganda film except for, you know, the part where I said “good.” It’s also a glimpse into the secretive world of the SEALS, men who can do anything — rescue hostages, kill terrorists, save the free world — except act.

Things get more interesting when the eight men in the platoon — Chief Dave and Lt.- Cmdr. Rorke and so on, all identified only by first name — go into the field, their fictional operation (“based on real acts of valour,” it says) is to retrieve a female CIA agent ( Roselyn Sanchez) from the clutches of a terrorist group that has caught her in Costa Rica and is torturing her.

The operation is filmed with a documentary love for the details: co- directors Mike Mccoy and Scott Waugh, who are former stuntmen, even have their cast use live ammunition. We see how SEALS parachute in, use a miniature drone called a “raven” to get aerial views of the enemy, aim their laser sights at Latino sadists for whom killing is too good, if you want my opinion, and then flee by truck, gunboat and helicopter. It’s called extraction and, believe me, your dentist couldn’t have done it more efficiently.

But their troubles aren’t over, because there’s also the matter of Christo ( Alex Veadov), a Russian arms dealer or drug smuggler or something, who is about to sell Islamic terrorists some suicide vests that — because they use ceramic ball bearings — could be worn right into the White House. They would do it, too: We’ve already seen them putting a bomb- filled ice- cream truck in a schoolyard, then luring children with a hurdy- gurdy version of Camptown Races. Camptown Races! These are people who will stop at nothing.

Act of Valour doesn’t progress much, as what we know as a “movie,” but it flies along as a showcase of modern weaponry and tactics. It also doubles as a video game, with cameras on the heroes’ helmets to give us the first- hand point of view of several messy kills. The movie doesn’t come with joysticks, but its target audience should be able to provide their own, if you catch my drift.