'Act of Valor's' blend of reality and fiction mostly shoots blanks

Nestor Serrano, shown, is an actor, but many of the participants in "Act of Valor" are real Navy SEALs.

By Michael Rechtshaffen , The Hollywood Reporter

Setting out to be the real deal of Navy SEAL movies, "Act of Valor" goes beyond the likes of Charlie Sheen and Demi Moore with a blend of reality and fiction played out by a cast of actors and actual active-duty recruits.

But the well-intentioned stab at manufactured authenticity yields a mixed bag of results.

Although the film has its undeniably immersive, convincing moments, the merging of dramatic re-creations and on-camera “performances” proves less seamlessly executed than those masterfully coordinated land, sea and air missions.

That said, with its arrival as SEAL heroism is riding high, the Relativity release could make a serious splash with a relatively clear opening-weekend shot at targeted young-male audiences.

It also could be edited into one heck of a recruitment video.

Directed by Mike “Mouse” McCoy and Scott Waugh, former stuntmen with extensive action-sports credits, "Valor" does a sufficiently valiant job holding the fort until Kathryn Bigelow’s untitled bin Laden thriller lands in theaters in December. The film comes closer in tone to Bigelow’s "The Hurt Locker" than to "G.I. Jane" as it follows a team of SEALs initially deployed to rescue a kidnapped CIA agent (Roselyn Sanchez) in Costa Rica.

But their mission widens considerably in international scope upon uncovering a terrorism plot involving suicide bombers wearing vests filled with hundreds of ceramic ball bearings containing explosive gel.

Taking its cue from real-life SEAL operations, the script, penned by Kurt Johnstad ("300"), layers in more traditional dramatic elements depicting relationships among the men and with their families back home.

While the Intel-infused re-enactments pack a propulsive punch, the other interactions -- requiring those individuals to essentially play themselves -- tend to be more stiffly executed.

One notable exception is an energetic interrogation sequence between ranking SEAL Senior Chief Van O, a man with a bushy gray beard and wildly intense eyes, and a cool customer of a terrorist mastermind (actor Alex Veadov).

Visually, cinematographer Shane Hurlbut ("Terminator Salvation") lends the bumpy picture a unifying visceral grit, and editors Waugh and Michael Tronick ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith") keep the combat adrenaline pumping.

Deleted by your friends? That's life on Facebook now

Users are getting a lot more selective, deleting comments, photo tags and even friends at a record rate, according to a new study released Friday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Pew is calling this phenomenon "the pruning" of social networks, and the study includes findings like this: 63 percent of users have unfriended people from their friends users. Another 44 percent have deleted comments made by others from their profile page, and 37 percent have removed tags from photos.

"Social network users are becoming more active in pruning and managing their accounts," says the report, written by Mary Madden, senior research specialist at Pew.

Users are also taking an active role in keeping their private information private, with 58 percent of users saying they use high-level privacy settings so only friends can view their pages. Women are far more restrictive, with 67 percent using the tightest privacy settings, compared to 48 percent of men. They lock down their accounts despite the fact that half of all users say they have "some difficulty" using the privacy controls.

The research seems to suggest that U.S. adults, who have so far shown little appetite for actively managing their personal privacy, are starting to get the hang of it.

"Social science researchers have long noted a major disconnect in attitudes and practices around information privacy online. When asked, people say that privacy is important to them; when observed, people’s actions seem to suggest otherwise," the report noted. The shift to more privacy on Facebook seems to belie this long-standing trend.

Perhaps regret has something to do with that.  The report found that 11 percent of Facebook users say they've posted something that they regret on a social network. Men are twice as likely to say so (15 percent to 8 percent). Users 50 and older, at 5 percent, are much less likely than young adults under 29 (15 percent), to express such regret. 

One area where there was a surprising lack of age gap: Overall privacy settings. While 23 percent of users 65 and over choose fully public settings, 22 percent of users 18-29make the same choice.

"The choices that adults make regarding their privacy settings are also virtually identical to those of teenage social media users," the report said.  "Private settings are the norm, regardless of age."

Young adults are more likely to "unfriend," however at 71 percent, compared to just 41 percent for the oldest users.

The Pew report is based on a survey of 2,277 U.S. adults conducted in May, and has a margin of error of +/- 3 percent.  In nearly all "pruning" related categories, and within nearly all age groups, use of privacy-related tools gained ground since the last time Pew conducted the study in 2009. Back then, only 30 percent of all users had untagged a photo, compared to 37 percent in 2011; and 56 percent had unfriended someone, compared to 63 percet in 2011.