BROKEN ARROW
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Action films that deliver are no
longer really uncommon. John Woo directs with
nearly the same pacing he might give a Hong Kong
film. And Travolta steals two thermonuclear
devices and the show from Christian Slater. BROKEN
ARROW offers nice effects, nice action scenes, and
no surprises in the story. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4)
[Some gaps in the plot are discussed in a spoiler
section after the review.]
The plot is simple enough, with more than a few plot elements borrowed from THUNDERBALL. Vic Deakins (played by John Travolta) and Riley Hale (Christian Slater) are Air Force pilots who fly the sleek, fully digitized B-3 stealth bomber with live nuclear bombs. Deakins has also taken a fatherly interest in Hale, giving him lessons on the philosophy of winning while brutally beating him in the boxing ring. Of course he does not expect Hale to make much use of these lessons. Just a few hours later tries to kill Hale as part of his plan to steal two nuclear bombs. Hale, together and self-drafted National Park Ranger Terry Carmichael (Samantha Mathis) have race to recover the bombs before Deakins can get his intended use from the nuclear devices.
Christian Slater should be almost as angry as his character in this since Woo seems to have not so much let Travolta steal the film as having goaded him into it. Travolta is given an arsenal of cinematic mannerisms, comments on the action, and even a few slow-motion entrances all intended to make the actor look oh-so-cool. Slater's dialogue and acting are by comparison much more restrained and why only Travolta got the Sergio Leone treatment is not clear. Samantha Mathis is an also-ran, as well as an also- jumped, and an also-fired-guns. She just does not seem to show up very well on the screen and Woo did not polish her the way he did with Travolta. About all we learn about her is that she lives alone with her dog and for this script that seems to be enough. Woo seems to think that the National Park Service trains their rangers like Navy SEALS and gets their uniforms shipped in by rocket from the Planet Krypton. Delroy Lindo, who played so well off Travolta in GET SHORTY, gets less opportunity to do it here as an Air Force colonel pulled into the action.
The pacing of BROKEN ARROW is fast and you are never very far from the next action scene. This is a style pioneered by the Bond series taken to extremes that make those films slow by comparison. But even the Bond films spend more time building the characters. Graham Yost, who wrote SPEED, gave this film much or more of the same pacing. The action of BROKEN ARROW takes place over a period of about eighteen hours and the more serious events (if it is not a misuse of that word) are treated as just an extension of the boxing ring lesson at the beginning of the film, as if Slater is giving a rebuttal.
Of course BROKEN ARROW has lots of flashy visual effects: digitized flying scenes, a nuclear detonation, Travolta's performance, helicopter crashes, etc. Flying a helicopter in this film is a lot like wearing a red shirt in the first "Star Trek" series: it is really tough to do it and stay alive. Most of the effects are quite good though the computer digitized flying sequences are far too easy to pick out.
Driving BROKEN ARROW are its action sequences and they are well done. The plot is told competently, though in the spoiler section below I will mention some holes. But the script never fleshes out it characters. It would have been worth it to have two fewer fights and a little character development instead. I give it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
SPOILER...SPOILER...SPOILER...SPOILER...SPOILER...SPOILER...
Three scenes particularly bothered me about the script. Somehow before the action of the film Travolta's character seems to have tampered with the electronics of the bombs to change the arming sequence. As he put it "I used uncoded circuit panels." Since when do the pilots have anything to do with building the electronics into nuclear bombs? And just what are "uncoded circuit panels?" It sounds like it is just double talk to explain an impossible plot twist.
In one scene Travolta's opens a door panel on the train and there is Slater's character, waiting for him to open the door. How do you sneak up on a train with a helicopter and how did Slater not only know that a door was going to open, but just what door it would be?
The physics of Travolta's final scene is absurd. Why is only the bomb torn loose, why does it have so much momentum, why isn't Travolta's character crushed against the wall before the bomb ever gets to him? The bomb almost seems to turn into a rocket.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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