When Nathan Harris was a teenager, he says, 'What I wanted to do was kill people.' He enlisted in the Marines. He's quite willing to show people the entry scar and describe how he has two rods filling in for bones. Shortly before the scheduled end of his six-month tour, a sniper's bullet entered his right buttock, shattered his hip socket and bounced back to destroy leg bones. Nathan Harris, and his real wife, Ashley.

In the same week I saw 'Act of Valor,' I also saw an extraordinary film named ' Hell and Back Again.' It's one of this year's Oscar nominees for best documentary feature, and will open in many markets on the same day as 'Act of Valor.' It is about a real man, Marine Sgt. Yet the movie can be discussed on another level. Assuming that the characters described as SEALs were being played by real SEALs, all I can say is that they were convincing and weren't asked to do any dramatic stretching they weren't capable of. We don't get to know the characters as individuals, they don't have personality traits, they have no back stories, they don't speak in colorful dialogue, and after the movie you'd find yourself describing events but not people. Much of the movie consists of pure action, punctuated by terse dialogue and few subtleties. Rorke, so I am reduced to describing the experience and not the performances. The official cast listing is a baffling mixture of characters without names and names with 'uncredited' roles, and doesn't include either Chief Dave and Lt. Rorke are played by SEALs whose real first names are Dave and Rorke. I learn from Rebecca Keegan's article that the characters named Chief Dave and Lt. This makes it difficult to write the ordinary kind of review, because none of their real names are revealed and indeed some of the characters seem to have no names at all.

The central characters are played by actual Navy SEALs, who were apparently on active duty during the filming and still are. 'Act of Valor,' however, centers more on action and much less on the human elements involved. I am reminded of the initial impact of films like Oliver Stone's ' Platoon' and Kathryn Bigelow's ' The Hurt Locker,' which both told convincing and authentic stories. The details in both of these scenarios seem realistic - although how would I know? The co-directors and their team have produced an accomplished, riveting action movie.

Was act of valor a true story