Broken Arrow *** (1996, John Travolta, Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis) Classic Movie Review 1722

Director John Woo’s wild and wayward 1996 action thriller provides John Travolta with an extravagant role that he clearly relishes as cool aviator Major Vic Deakins. He hijacks his own plane with a couple of nuclear bombs aboard, and delivers it to a bunch of cardboard stock Hollywood villains, who blackmail America with it for a huge ransom.

Travolta’s co-pilot Captain Riley Hale (Christian Slater) then sets out to stop the baddies and save the day, picking up ultra-spunky park ranger Terry Carmichael (Samantha Mathis) along the way.

Broken Arrow, the official name for a nuclear theft crisis, is brought down by a basic action thriller plot, developed in Graham Yost’s truly cheesy screenplay that doesn’t really do anyone any favours. Travolta comes off best in his post-Tarantino Frigidaire-cool persona, though (after Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty) enough now already, Big John! However, lightweight performers Slater and Mathis are pleasing company but somewhat adrift and unconvincing as action stars.

Director Woo stages the whole thing gobsmackingly at breakneck pace on amazing Utah desert locations, with one absurd daredevil stunt piled on top of another, giving it much more style and excitement than it really deserves. It may be all meaningless, pointless and ridiculous but there’s no end to the thrilling battering ram of noise, music, action and mindless violence.

The weary Broken Arrow script needs quite a bit of fixing, though it still has quite a few funny lines and some bright ideas.

Delroy Lindo, Bob Gunton, Frank Whaley, Howie Long, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Jack Thompson, Kurtwood Smith, Daniel von Bargen and Chris Mulkey co-star.

John Woo is also the director of Hard Target (1992), Face/Off (1997), Mission: Impossible II, Windtalkers (2002) and Paycheck (2003).

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1722

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