Broken Arrow - 1996 - Twentieth Century Fox
Starring - John Travolta, Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Vondie Curtis-Hall.
Director - John Woo.
First Impressions - I first saw this film on TV. I hadn’t really noticed it existed until then, however I taped it and enjoyed it very much. I then did what I normally do, go out and buy the original video and added it to my collection. Since then I have watched it many times and even though I rate it as a good film, I can honestly say that it is not the best. Don’t let this put you off though, it is a good film to watch when you want a night in with a few beers, or when you are bored.
Minor description of plot - The film starts in a boxing ring in a USAF base in Utah. The two main actors in the film, Vic Deakins (John Travolta) and Riley Hale (Christian Slater) are pilots in the USAF. They are having a sparring match to fill in the spare time and keep up their levels of fitness. Deakins is a lot older than Hale and thus means he has been boxing a lot longer. You will now know the winner of the sparring session.
This follows by the two pilots going to the briefing room in which Hale finds out that the two of them will be piloting a B3 stealth bomber armed with nuclear weapons. This is because the air force are worried about the fact that, even though the stealth is undetecable to radar, the weapons may give off low radiation. They pursue to the aircraft where they take off on their mission.
The next thing you notice is that there is a lot of activity in the Utah national park, this is actually Deakins team that he has got together because he is intent on stealing these weapons.
After they have completed the mission and go into autopilot mode, Deakins fools Hale into looking out of the window, pulls a gun on him and after a fight Hale has to eject. This leaves Deakins to drop the bombs to the ground and then eject himself.
The next morning Hale recovers and wakes up, not knowing where he is, or where the plane or Deakins is. He is then confronted by the park ranger Terri Carmichael (Samantha Mathis) who is not bothered what he says, she is just intent on arresting him. After a tussle, he convinces her that, although he cannot tell her what happened, he needs help to fulfil the mission of getting the weapons back.
That is all I am prepared to say about the film but I hope that from what I have wrote, you will be prepared to watch the film.
Plus points - The acting is quite good, John Travolta was in the process of making several films when he made this. This doesn’t show and he puts all of his effort into this movie.
John Woo making sure that it would be hard to make a sequel from this film. I don’t think that this film was quite respected enough for a follow up.
I would normally say here my comments on the special features of the DVD but unfortunately I only have the VHS version.
Samantha Mathis looking lovely as aver.
Minus Points - Like I have said, even though I regard John Woo as a very good director, I think he should concentrate more on the martial arts side of his movies. However, the fight sequences are well choreographed.
I thought some parts of the film were predictable and how did Hale know where Deakins was going. If you have seen the film you will know what I meant by that.
Similar Movies - Mission Impossible 2 (Tom Cruise)
Y2K (Malcolm McDowell, Louis Gossett Jnr)