Broken Arrow - Stick That Missile Where?!?!

I was never a big fan of John Travolta. I’ve seen Saturday Night Fever and was not all that impressed. Of course I guess it would have helped if I were a disco baby and not a Gen-X’er. When Travolta came back with Pulp Fiction I was very impressed at how far he had come since the disco days. So when I saw he was coming out with a new movie I just had to check it out because of 2 things…

1.) It was directed by John Woo
2.) John Travolta was playing the villain.

I have always loved John Woo’s movies. He had a keen eye for action sequences and a great feel for camera angles and body movement. And of course since Travolta has never played a villain I was very keen on seeing how he did in this movie.

Plot

United States Air Force Major Vic Deakins (Travolta) and Captain Riley Hale (Christian Slater) are taking a test flight in a new stealth bomber, which is carrying 2 nuclear missiles. The purpose of the flight is to see if radar is able to detect the stealth bomber while it has real live missiles on board.

Almost right from the start of the flight Vic starts acting strange and suddenly attacks Riley. After a brief fight both men are ejected and the plane crashes with the nuclear missiles aboard. The government issues a “Broken Arrow” alert, which is the term the government uses when they loose a nuclear device.

Deakins meets up with his band of thieves and recovers the missiles before the government can get their team out there. His plan is to either sell the nukes to foreign powers or to sell them back to the U.S. What Deakins doesn’t know is that Hale has survived and with the help of a resourceful park ranger, Samantha Mathis, he sets out to find out what happened and to stop Deaks before he blows up the nukes.

My Thoughts

Thanks to John Woo the action sequences are awesome. The fight scenes are well choreographed and scenes such as the helicopter blade sequence will have you in awe.

John Travolta plays an excellent villain. He gives you the impression that he doesn’t care about anyone or anything and that he is out for the money. His facial expressions are priceless, whether it was the look he gave just before he tries to kill Hale at the beginning, or the look he has after he kills one of his nagging cohorts.

Although I have never been a big fan of Christian Slater he did a good job in this movie. He made a very good pair along with Mathis. Mathis herself does an excellent job playing the beautiful yet tough park ranger.

But one of the best performances of the movie and the most entertaining has got to be Howie Long’s. When I saw he was in this movie I thought “hmm ok he’s big, he’s tough”, and I wasn’t wrong, he plays Travoltas right hand man perfectly. He has some of the funnier lines in the movies and also has some great fight scenes. I might receive some flack for this, but I found him extremely entertaining to watch.

The movie have a few flaws, but overall it is a great action flick with some great one liners like when Hale is chasing Deakins and Howie Long’s character is shooting back at Hale and Deakins turns to Howie and with a menacing grin asks him politely “Would you mind not shooting at the thermal nuclear devices” wherein Howie just gives him a smirk, shrugs his shoulderes and says "sorry".

So if you just want a good movie with a decent (if not rehashed) plot, with great one-liners and some great acting then check out this flick.
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