History Film / ActOfValor

* WouldHitAGirl: When one of the female jihadis tries firing on the [=SEALs=], they have no qualms about shooting her back.
** To be fair, you don't have time to care what gender she was when she's firing a gun at you with intentions of blowing your head off.

* CoolHat: The Multicam boonie hats worn by the [=SEALs=].

* InTheBlood: 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.]]

* FemalesAreMoreInnocent: Out of 14 men and three women who are Shabal's suicide bombers, the men are casually shot down while the women are given lingering closeups and scenes of themselves looking regretful, including one's tragic backstory of wanting to reunite with her husband.

* TheCartel: The terrorist BigBad is being aided by a Ukrainian crime lord who controls a drug-running cartel stretching from Central America to Mexico. The SEAL team first has to rescue a CIA agent being tortured by the cartel in Central America before tracking their operations across the globe and raiding the Ukranian leader's boat. The final battle is between the combined US Navy SEAL/Mexican SOF team and the cartel soldiers and terrorists, the former of whom are trying to smuggle the latter's suicide bombers into the United States. . The majority of the badguys are actually cartel gunmen of one sort or another, working to support Shabal's Jihadists.

* TheDoorSlamsYou: A cartel member runs to a door only for an explosive entry charge to blast it into his face.

!!Provides Examples OF:

* SpiritualSuccessor: Some have called it ''Film/TheGreenBerets'' for TheWarOnTerror.

* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: When Bandito Platoon raids the suicide bomber staging village, they think everything's settled... until MissionControl tells Rorke there's 8 more terrorists to hunt.

** They don't have ice cream trucks in the Philippines, just ice cream carts. The mere presence of the truck should have aroused suspicions rather than excitement. Plus the truck serves passionfruit-flavored ice cream like it's an everyday thing, but passionfruit is rare in the country to the point of being exotic.

* AllThereInTheManual: Bandito Platoon, the designator for the protagonists, is only used in supplementary materials. [[spoiler: And on the memorial picture frame of Lt. Rorke]]
** The surnames of Bandito Platoon are only noted in the novelisation.
* ArmorIsUseless: Played with; Chief's crew skip armor when rescuing Morales, since it's too heavy to swim with. However, they later wear their armor on the raids into Mexico: LT's vest keeps him from being killed by an RPG-7 (with a dud warhead), and [[spoiler: helps absorb the blast from the grenade he jumps on, mortally wounding him instead of outright death. Chief's body armor is the only thing that keeps him from being killed outright by Shabal]].

--> '''Chief Dave''': Jesus, LT, how are you gonna explain ''that'' one to my family?

** To be fair, you don't have time to care what gender they are when are actively trying to kill you.

** Justified in that it was self defense. She fired first.

* DullSurprise: The majority of the actors are active [=SEALs=] with no real acting experience. Which means that their less-than-excited reactions under fire and killing enemies are pretty much because they've SeenItAll.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: The portrayal of the Philippines had some Filipinos and Filipino-Americans up in arms over the inaccuracies.
** The {{mooks}} of the bad guys are Islamic terrorists, fair enough - but they have Christian or Western names and only speak Filipino (aka Tagalog), the national language and more akin to the Western-colonized majority-Christian population instead of the Malay and Arab-influenced Muslim minority.

** The {{mooks}} of the bad guys are Islamic terrorists, fair enough - but they have Christian names and only speak Filipino (aka Tagalog), the national language and more akin to the majority-Christian population instead of the Muslim Arabicized minority.

** The {{mooks}} of the bad guys are Islamic terrorists, fair enough - but they have Christian names and only speak Filipino, the national language and the main language of the majority-Christian population instead of the Muslim minority.

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: They don't have ice cream trucks in the Philippines, just ice cream barrows. The mere presence of the truck should have aroused suspicions rather than excitement.

* BadHumorTruck / CarBomb: 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

* EyeScream: One SEAL takes a bullet to the eye during the rescue of Morales. [[spoiler:MadeOfIron He survives.]]

* DeathOfAChild: The first onscreen terror attack is a bomb at a primary school in the Philippines.* {{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.

* {{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.

* InfantImmortality: Averted: the first onscreen terror attack is a bomb at a primary school in the Philippines.

* TheCartel: Run by Christo. The majority of the badguys are actually cartel gunmen of one sort or another, working to support Shabal's Jihadists.

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Lt. Rorke.]]

* ImpairmentShot

* MookHorrorShow: ''All'' of the major gunfights the SEALs get in invoke this on the part of the terrorists/cartel soldiers. The parts shown from their perspective as they fight the SEALs shows them facing deadly squads of elite soldiers who are slipping among their positions in total silence, snipers picking off their men as they try to flee, and deadly-coordinated SEALs cutting down their troops with precise shots.