ACT OF VALOR (Rated R)

Hollywood is really good at fabricating heroes or bringing comic book versions to life on the big screen. Many get in the act, from Batman saving Gotham to Bruce Willis in the “Die Hard” franchise.

A more difficult task is to locate real heroes, those who put their lives on the line defending liberty and their country in circumstances most of us could not endure for one brief elusive moment.

Thanks to the swift and welcome elimination of Osama bin Laden last year, the U.S. Navy SEALs are not just heroes; they are legendary guardians of what we too easily take for granted.

While memories are still fresh in our collective short-attention span, “Act of Valor” comes along to remind us that heroes don’t get the job done with nifty special effects while the director yells “cut.”

Mike “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh of the Bandito Brothers are the directors. Their backgrounds are perfect for the job, as both have been stuntmen and documentary filmmakers.

“Act of Valor,” which blends reality and fiction, has the feel of a documentary, but one that takes extraordinary lengths to make a fictionalized account of Navy SEAL operations convincing and accurate.

The film opens in San Diego, the home base for the SEAL unit getting ready for another mission. We meet leading military professionals like Chief Dave and Lt. Rorke, along with guys in their unit like Ajay, Mikey, Sonny and Weimy.

A barbecue at the beach is a brief introduction to the team. But the most telling point is that the military men are not actors, so mercifully the story shifts to action fairly quickly.

While a terrorist assault at an international school in the Philippines results in the death of the U.S. ambassador, the Navy SEAL team is dispatched to Costa Rica to extract a CIA agent abducted by a drug cartel.

As Agent Morales (Roselyn Sanchez) is held in the jungle and brutally tortured by the henchmen of drug kingpin Christo (Alex Veadov), Chief Dave and Lt. Rorke are forced by circumstances to stage a daring and explosive rescue operation.

One of the many exciting, action-packed and adrenaline-pumping moments involve a pair of heavily armed American gunboats sweeping in behind the SEALs to blast the villains to smithereens.

Though the mission is successful, the SEALs unearth some intelligence that connects Christo to fierce Chechen terrorist Abu Shabal (Jason Cottle), who is hiding out in Somalia to formulate a plot to send suicide bombers across the Mexican border.

Oddly enough, Shabal has recruited a group of Filipinos to carry out a bombing plot on American cities involving the detonation of sophisticated explosives made of undetectable gels.

But to get to the target cities, Shabal links with Mexican drug cartels to move his assassins through cross-border tunnels that are used primarily by drug mules carrying contraband into the United States.

An assault is launched in a dusty Mexican border town where the baddies hide out. The willing cooperation of the Mexican authorities might be the most inauthentic moment in the film, but it helps diplomatic relations.

Except for Senior Chief Van O, who efficiently interrogates the slippery Christo, the SEALs are too good at being a team, to the point that they do not come across as individuals.

We should keep in mind that the SEALs are not actors; they are very good at undertaking perilous missions, but acting in films is not their forte. Nevertheless, the authenticity of their dedication shines through.

“Act of Valor,” fueled by edge-of-the-seat thrills in a dangerous world, offers a chilling sense of realism in the unpredictable battlefield of modern warfare. It’s an action film well worth seeing.

DVD RELEASE UPDATE

This is another shameless plug for one of my favorite TV series, “Mission: Impossible,” starring Peter Graves as IMF team leader Jim Phelps.

We have already burned through all of the original seasons, and now we focus on the revival of the series during the late 1980’s, with Peter Graves the sole returning original cast member.

“Mission: Impossible: The ’89 TV Season” continues on its merry path of the Impossible Mission Force solving dangerous and seemingly impossible tasks.

The DVD release of “The ’89 TV Season” includes all 16 episodes of the series’ final breathtaking season.

Unfortunately, special features are practically non-existent, with only episodic promos on select episodes available.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.