Act of Valor: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"The only easy day was yesterday."''|Tagline & SEAL motto}}

 

 

 

* [[Adaptation Expansion]]: The novelization, which expands further on the characterisation of Bandito Platoon.

* [[All There in the Manual]]: Bandito Platoon, the designator for the protagonists, is only used in supplementary materials. {{spoiler|And on the memorial picture frame of Lt. Rorke}}

* [[Badass Crew]]: Bandito Platoon, of course.

* [[Bad Humor Truck]] / [[Car Bomb]]: The suicide car bomb that Abu Shabal used is an ice cream truck, and it exploded when several school children, including an American child and the US ambassador, were congregated nearby

** Interestingly, the Navy claims that no taxpayer money was used, as the combat scenes were filmed during scheduled training exercises.

* [[Bang Bang BANG]]: Averted: The gunshots are very much authentic-sounding. That was because they were authentic bullets. The cast was really shooting on set.

* [[Berserk Button]]: Don't ever give even the faintest scintilla of a hint that you ''might'' not be 100% behind Shabal's scheme. Just...don't.

* [[Blasting It Out of Their Hands]]: During his solo raid on the cartel, Chief Dave's M4 is shot out of his hands, resulting in his shooting hand being hurt and forcing him to switch to his pistol. At {{spoiler|Lt. Rorke's funeral}}, his hand is shown completely wrapped in bandages.

** This is how CIA officer Walter Ross buys it when the cartel raids Morales' safehouse.

* [[Book Ends]]: The movie opens with Lt. Rorke teaching Chief Dave how to surf, and closes with {{spoiler|Chief Dave surfing alone.}}

* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: "I don't know much about Senior Chief, just that I wouldn't want to be interrogated by him."

* [[Code Name]]: Blackbeard Actual for Lt. Rorke, Blackbeard Main for [[Mission Control]], Whiplash for the [[Gunship Rescue|SWCC boats]], and Bucket for the Army Chinooks.

* [[Cool Boat]]: The SWCC boats. Fast and bristling with guns, can be inserted and extracted by ''helicopter,'' and enough space to evacuate a SEAL team.

** Christo's yacht is pretty nice, too...

* [[Determinator]]: An important quality for SEALs, best shown by how Chief Dave ''will not stop fighting'', even after getting his shooting hand shot up and ''bleeding to death''. He takes pretty much a full AK-47 magazine to the chest, and he's ''still trying to reload his pistol'' as he blacks out from blood loss.

* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: Literally, when intelligence officer Morales is attacked and kidnapped. More figuratively when the SEALs take on hordes of mooks.

** That truck getting blown up by an RPG? No special effects whatsoever, that was a real truck getting hit with a real RPG.

* [[Dull Surprise]]: A common complaint about the acting. Sorta justified, as they are active SEALs with no real acting exprience, but that doesn't make their charcterization any less shallow.

* [[Faceless Mooks]]: The Mexican SOF team again, with their balaclavas. [[Justified Trope|They need to hide their identities or risk cartel retribution.]]

* [[Fast Roping]]: Done twice as a means of transfer from helicopter to boat.

* [[Framing Device]]: A letter written by Chief Dave, which forms the basis for his narration.

* [[Friendly Sniper]]: Weimy. [[Played With]] in that Weimy doesn't necessarily talk more on his missions, or directly address his enemies, which actually makes him a [[Cold Sniper]], if it wasn't for the fact that he's on the good guys' side.

* [[Gatling Good]]: The SWCCs are equipped with these for [[More Dakka]].

* [[Gunship Rescue]]: The SWCC boats coming to extract the SEALs.

* [[Hope Spot]]: {{spoiler|After Rorke jumps on the grenade, it first seems he's died, until we see him blinking a few times... and then his eyes stop moving as the soundtrack goes silent and his heartbeat slows to a halt.}}

* [[Infant Immortality]]: Brutally averted: the first onscreen terror attack is a bomb at a primary school in the Phillipines.

* [[In the Blood]]: Chief Dave's attempt to provide some measure of comfort to {{spoiler|Lt. Rorke's son: His great-grandfather was a hero, his father was a hero, and the same blood flows through his veins.}}

* [[Interservice Rivalry]]: Very strongly averted; the SEALs have no problems coordinating with other Navy assets, and Army Spec Ops Chinooks infil and extract Whiplash.

* [[Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique]]: Senior Chief Miller averts this when interrogating Christo, relying instead on psychological head games and leverage. It does come close to getting to this trope when Christo uses a metronome device to demonstrate the two pronged front on America between him and Shabal, however, due to Miller shattering the metronome in irritation at Christo's attempt at playing mind games on him.

* [[Morality Pet]] / [[Papa Wolf]]: Christo does have a very tiny redeemable factor to his character, and its that he does genuinely care for his family, and it was the prospect of his not seeing his daughter or his wife again, and the fear of what might happen in his absence, that resulted in him telling the SEALs everything he knows about Shabal's plans regarding the ceramic claymore bomb vests during his interrogation. He doesn't regret the decision to team up with Shamal or let him and his Jihadists have the vests, though, as evidenced by his grin when he says to Senior Chief Miller that Shamal's plans cannot be stopped.

* [[Made of Iron]]: In universe:

** Chief Dave. {{spoiler|Being shot up with what amounts to pretty much a full AK-47 magazine, he still manages to take out the escaping jihadis using his M4 carbine, and switches to his service pistol when he can't fire the M4 anymore.}} This was based on a real account, so there's a SEAL out there who really is made of iron (well, several probably).

** Lt. Rorke takes an RPG-7 round to the chest, and ''survives''. Granted, he was wearing his body armor. {{spoiler|His luck runs out with the grenade.}}

* [[Mission Control]]: Blackbeard Main.

** In a subversion, most of the time the SEALs are firing on semiauto, instead of burst or full automatic.

* [[New Meat]]: Averted: all members of Bandito Platoon are experienced SEALs; the least experienced SEAL, Sonny, has 3 SEAL tours and seven years as an EOD tech, defusing bombs.

* [[Obfuscating Disability]]: Possibly. The Senior Chief tells Crisco -- uh, Christo that he's hard of hearing, and uses that information as an interrogation technique.

* [[Oh Crap]]: Happens a few times. Particularly noteworthy is when LT and Chief breach a room and come face to face with a suicide bomber, and rush to GTFO before she detonates. {{spoiler|They make it out just in time.}}

* [[Retirony]]: While no one is on the verge of retirement, any [[Genre Savvy]] viewer can figure out that the {{spoiler|person that keeps talking about taking time off to be with his wife while their baby is born}} is going to end up doing a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] before the end of the movie.

* [[Reluctant Warrior]]: The female jihadist {{spoiler|that ended up blowing herself up during the climax}} is shown to not want to have to essentially go suicide bomber, as she is seen displaying visible reluctance to Shabal of having to commit to it (to which Shabal {{spoiler|reassures her that [[False Reassurance|she'll meet up with her husband in Heaven]]}}), as well as silently crying when {{spoiler|she ultimately goes through with it.}}

* [[Shown Their Work]]: This is the most accurate fictional depiction of warfare to date in movie history, the battle tactics in this film are all done as realistically as possible (right down to using live ammo) and it shows.

** When an enemy is shot with a sniper rifle by a SEAL, another SEAL catches the body [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|from his position underwater]] so it doesn't splash into the river and give away their position.

* [[Translation Convention]]: Played straight in Ukraine during the conversation between Christo and Shabal. Nicely averted during the interrogation on Christo's yacht: Senior Chief Miller queries Christo in a couple of languages before they settle on English as being most comfortable for them both to converse in.

** Alternately, as both Abu Shabal and Cristo are seen to be fluent English speakers, they're speaking in English for additional privacy.

* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: When one of the female jihadis tries firing on the SEALs, they have no qualms about shooting her back.

* [[Would Not Shoot a Civilian]]: The SEALs are careful to avoid shooting civilians in the Mexican village.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Films of the 2010s]]

[[Category:Film]]