Act of Valor: Difference between revisions

* [[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.}}

* [[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.}}

* [[Impaled Palm]]: Lisa Morales gets this with a ''[[Cold-Blooded Torture|drill]].''

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

* [[It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars]]: Fans' responses to the common complaints about shallow characters, cliched story, and dull acting tend to fall somewhere between this and "But it stars REAL NAVY SEALS!!!"

* [[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.

* [[Jumping On a Grenade]]: {{spoiler|Performed as a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] by Lt. Rorke in the assault on the Mexican cartel.}}

* [[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:

{{quote| {{spoiler|"Mikey, you took one to the ''face,'' man! You're a hard motherfucker!"}}}}

** 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.

* [[One-Man Army]]: Chief Dave pulls this, fueled by [[Tranquil Fury]], though not entirely by choice, since the Mexican SOF operator with him got shot.

* [[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.