With John Travolta, Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis
Written by Graham Yost
Directed by John Woo
(20th Century Fox, 1996)
by Ronnie Kray
This is Director John Woo’s second US film, his first being Hard Target with Jean-Claude Van Damme. In Broken Arrow, a nuclear missile goes awry and someone of top intellect and extreme balls has to be called in. No, it’s not Charlie Sheen or Wesley Snipes, it’s the comeback kid, John Travolta. While he’s no Lawrence Olivier, he has risen well above his Sweathog obscurity of the past and proven himself to be a fine, gifted actor. Travolta’s character, however, turns out to be a nutcase, and Christian Slater is brought in to stop him. Slater kicked ass in True Romance, but he’s far too pretty to be fighting bad guys for world domination in the middle of the desert.
Broken Arrow is fun to watch – it’s a blam-blam action flick with a loose story tied to its hamstring, but offers no big symbolism or apologies. Overall, this is good visceral entertainment.