Review of Broken Arrow (1996) by Angela B — 23 Sep 2009

Broken Arrow (1996).

This was one of Chinese action director John Woo's first American-made movies and he doesn't disappoint.

Two Air Force pilots, Major Vic 'Deak' Deakins (John Travolta) and Captain Riley Hale (Christian Slater) are sometimes colleagues, sometimes bitter rivals. They're ordered to do a live training mission flying a B1 Stealth Bomber undetected over Utah with two nukes.

Major Deak's bad attitude has kept him from being promoted to General, and he has conspired to crash the bomber, steal the nukes, and extort the government. He first makes it out to be an accident. Everyone in Washington seams to be clueless and ready to hush everything up except for Giles Prentice (Frank Whaley) who is sent to Utah to investigate.

Park Ranger, Terry Carmichael (beautiful, fun-sized Samantha Mathis) is sent in to investigate all of the, late-night truck traffic, and is caught up in the middle of the action. It's now up to Riley and Terry to go after Deak and his men and save the country from a nuclear holocaust.

This is above-average action fare, but Travolta is far too cool and likable to be an evil villain. Or, is he? Slater gets in some good lines too. There's lots of chases, fighting, shooting and explosions including one that's nuclear. This is a great, mindless action movie for the guys.