Is the 'Act of Valor' novel better than 'Act of Valor' the movie?

I finally got around to watching the war movie, “Act of Valor,” the other night, and it left me hoping that there’d be an “Act of Valor II.” If you call yourself a red-blooded American, you need to watch this movie (if you haven’t already).

Released in theatres on Feb. 24, “Act of Valor” was directed by Mike McCoy and Scott Waugh. The cast includes actual U.S. Navy SEALS as well as Jason Cottle, Emilio Rivera, Roselyn Sanchez, Nestor Serrano and Alex Veadov. The movie’s rated R and has a run time of an hour and 50 minutes.

The movie also features real life U.S. Navy Special Warfare Combatant-Craft Crewmen. I have to admit that I didn’t know much about these service members before watching “Act of Valor.” I was interested to learn that the sailors in SWCC (pronounced “swick”) are tasked with maintaining and operating the numerous small craft used during special ops missions, especially those carried out by SEALs. Most of what they do involves getting the SEALs into and out of mission locations, including shallow water areas where large ships can’t travel.

If you haven’t seen “Act of Valor,” here’s the basic plot. As the CIA closes in on an extremely wealthy, South American arms dealer, the dealer has a CIA agent killed and another kidnapped for interrogation. The Navy SEALS are called in to rescue the captured agent and are eventually called on to foil a nefarious plot to smuggle a number of high-tech weapons across the border into the U.S.

This movie was negatively reviewed early on, but you couldn’t tell it from the box office returns. Shot on a budget of around $12 million, the movie raked in over $80 million. I’m not surprised that it did so well at the theatres because it’s a fine action movie. If you like movies with lots of gun play, this movie will not disappoint you. There are also loads of helicopters, jets, submarines and aircraft carriers if you enjoy that sort of thing.

A lot of people associate this movie with best-selling thriller writer, Tom Clancy. The screenplay for the film was actually written by Kurt Johnstad. The connection with Clancy comes in with a novel that was released along with the film called “Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor.” While this novel bears Clancy’s name, it was actually written by Dick Couch and George Galadorisi. Basically, Clancy lent his name to the book, which was bound to have helped sales.

I haven’t read the book, but I’d like to. If it’s as good as the movie, then it’s pretty good. It appeared on the Publishers Weekly’s mass-market paperback best-sellers list for seven weeks earlier this year. It first appeared on the best-sellers list on Jan. 26, debuting at the No. 10 spot on the mass-market paperbacks best-sellers list. It climbed as high as No. 4 in the weeks following the movie’s release.

In the end, how many of you have seen “Act of Valor”? What did you think about it? What was your favorite part? Why? How many of you have read the novel? What did you think about it? Let us know in the comments section below.