Broken Arrow (1996)
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In many cases it is possible to tell a lot about a film’s content and style merely by looking at the name of the director. When that name is John Woo then it’s probably safe to predict that the film will be an action movie with a heroic hero and evil enemy, many explosions, many action scenes, much slow-motion and Woo’s trademark gun-in-each-hand shootouts. Maybe one day Woo will produce a film that doesn’t conform to this stereotype but this is not that film.
The “Broken Arrow” of the title is a codename used by the US military for a crash-landing of a plane carrying nuclear warheads. This film revolves around one such crash - orchestrated by villainous air force pilot Vic Deakins (John Travolta) who wants to sell the warheads on the black market. His co-pilot Riley Hale (Christian Slater) tries to stop but is forced to parachute out of the falling plane, into the middle of a remote part of Utah. With only park ranger Terry (Samantha Mathis) he must stop Deakins and his henchmen from successfully stealing the nuclear weapons.
It’s an interesting premise for an action movie, and by the standards of the genre it’s not too far-fetched although some suspension of disbelief is required during the more elaborate action sequences. This being a Woo film there are inevitably many action scenes, and they’re all very well done even if there isn’t anything especially memorable here. It’s never going to be ranked on any lists of the best action movies but fans of the genre are likely to be reasonably happy with this film.
The direction manages to instill a reasonable amount of tension, and the dialogue and action scenes are entertaining, if never brilliant. Action movies don’t really require great acting but Slater and Mathis are competent actors and while Travolta is not an actor capable of any real subtlety he makes a good villain and his henchmen are satisfyingly villainous.
In summary, this is an entertaining, but ultimately average action film.
Rating : 7 / 10
All content ©2003 William Marnoch.
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