Title: Broken Arrow
US Release: 2/9/1996
Directed by John Woo
Written by Graham Yost
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Cast:
John Travolta – Major. Victor “Deak” Deakins
Christian Slater – Cpt. Riley Hale.
Samantha Mathis – Terry Carmichael
Delroy Lindo – Colonel Wilkins
Kurtwood Smith – Secretary of Defense Baird
Frank Whaley – Giles Prentice
Bob Grunton – Mr. Pritchett
Howie Long – Master Sargent Kelly
The Skinny:
Major.
“Deak” Deakins (Travolta) and his co-pilot, Capt. Riley Hale (Slater), are USAF
pilots assigned to the B3 stealth bomber (fictional aircraft) program. Deak is overly competitive, while Hale seems
to lack the ambition to move up the ranks.
The pair receive orders to test the B3’s stealth capabilities by flying
the craft “map of the earth” (as close to the ground as possible) at night near
a radar installation while carrying two nuclear warheads, with an 83 mega-ton yield
each.
Colonel
Wilkins (Lindo), commanding officer of the radar installation in charge of
tracking them, sees this as a friendly game and banters with the pair over the
radio. Hale flies the plane very low,
evading the radar and remaining undetected.
Deak, in a bit of sarcasm, congratulates Hale. Hale offhandedly makes a quip about Deak having
a god-complex. Deak manages to get Hale
to look out his window, then suddenly draws his gun on him. In a frenzy, the two fight over control of
the plane. Hale notices Deak is trying
to jettison the nukes. He does his best
to stop him, but Deak manages to pull his ejector seat and Hale is ejected from
the plane. Deak jettisons the nukes and
climbs to a height that can be seen by the radar installation. Colonel Wilkins thinks he’s won the game, only
to be shocked when he hears Deak exclaim over the radio that Hale “lost”
control of the plane and now must eject.
The plane crashes into a canyon somewhere in Utah. Col. Wilkins wastes no time ordering ground
forces to the wreckage.
The
film then shifts to the Pentagon, where the joint chiefs are gathered by
Secretary of Defense Baird (Smith) and approves a cover story about the
crash. His aid, Giles Prentice (Whaley)
interjects, and recommends that they just tell the truth, as reporters will see
the flaws in their story and will make them look foolish when they point them
out in the news. Baird at first laughs
at the idea, but agrees and has the story changed to reflect the truth. Impressed with Giles’ bravery, he sends him
to Utah to laisse with Col. Wilkins.
Hale
awakens on the floor of the canyon, tired and hurt but alive. He soon crosses paths with a park ranger,
Terry Carmichael (Mathis), who witnessed the low fly over and followed his
parachute. Thinking he’s dangerous, she
holds him at gunpoint, but Hale manages to subdue her and turn her own gun on
her. Now with her at gunpoint, he asks
for her help. She rebuffs his request as
he could easily kill her for saying no, but surprises her when he gives her gun
back. About to walk off to find Deak
alone, Terry offers to let him use her radio in her truck.
The
search and rescue team arrives at the crash site, but finds no nukes in the
wreckage. The team commander declares
the situation a “Broken Arrow”. Secretary Baird explains to Giles, via cell
phone as he’s en route to Utah, that a “Broken Arrow” is when nukes are lost or
misplaced. Giles muses that the only
thing scarier than losing nuclear weapons is that it happens so often that it
has its own term.
The search and rescue team locates
the nukes via tracking devices placed within them per Military code. They
are soon ambushed by separate team of ex-military professionals, assembled by
Deak for this mission, and betrayed by one of their own, Master Sgt. Kelly (Long)
also part of Deak’s team, who kills the team captain. The team’s financier, Mr. Pritchett (Grunton)
is very annoyed by the situation. Even
when Deak emerges from the desert in casual everyday fashion, Pritchett is even
more annoyed.
Hale and Terry make it back to the
truck and try to call the ranger station for help. Out of nowhere, the rescue team’s helicopter,
now under the control of Deak’s pilot and fully armed, destroys the truck as
Hale and Terry barely escape. Evading as
best they can, Terry manages to distract the pilot while Hale uses her gun to
shoot the pilot, causing the helicopter to crash.
Now without their original means of
transporting the nukes out of the desert, Deak and team use their military
surplus Humvees to transport the nukes, much to Pritchett’s chagrin. Hale and Terry manage board the lead Humvee
carrying the nukes and escape with them, surprising Deak with his ingenuity and
improvisation. Leaking gas from the
shootout, Terry drives the nukes to a supposedly abandoned copper mine. While trading barbs with Deak over a radio
left in the Humvee, Hale tries to cripple the nukes by triggering the internal
fail-safes, but it backfires when he inadvertently arms one of the nukes. Not wanting Deak to succeed, he takes both
nukes down the mine with the aim of letting the other be buried when the mine
collapses from the nuclear explosion.
Deak and his team arrive much sooner than anticipated, and take back the
remaining nuke after a shootout in the mine.
Hale and Terry escape through an underground river before the nuke
detonates.
Deak sends a video tape to the
joint chiefs detailing his demands, or he will detonate the last nuke. Co. Wilkins sets out to track down Deak at
all costs, but Hale believes he knows where Deak is really going and continues
his pursuit to stop him. Along the way
Hale and Terry become separated. Terry manages
to stay hidden as the nuke is transported to his intended target, while Hale is
picked up by Col. Wilkins and his subordinates.
Knowing the risk of nuclear detonation is more important that Terry’s life
in the eyes of Secretary Baird, Hale manages to convince Col. Wilkins to let
him try to rescue her before his forces destroy Deak and his team along with
the remaining nuke. Hale manages to find
his competitive side as he infiltrates Deak’s team, rescues Terry and attempts
to disarm the warhead.
On the Surface:
Definitely
an action flick through and through, this film has the distinction of being the
only time famous movie critic Roger Ebert convinced his equally famous
colleague, Gene Siskel, to change his “thumbs up” to “thumbs down”. Ebert felt that Travolta’s character of Deak
was his own villain. A classic case of
monologuing, Deak talked when he should’ve just pulled the trigger.
This film was released during a
time when the standard formula for action movies seemed to be growing
stale. Audiences weren’t seeing anything
new, and though John Woo’s directing was eloquent and perfect for the action
genre, this film wasn’t favored by movie goers and almost ignored entirely by
viewers who never saw it, whether in the theater or on home video.
Production wise:
The
film was John Woo’s second American film, as his first, “Hard Target” starring Jean
Claude Van Damme, was well received. Also,
on the rise was Hans Zimmer, whose musical scoring was getting more creative
with synthesizers and electronic sound manipulation, was brought onto this film
to give it a unique vibe and set it apart from other big budget action films
with equally big orchestral scores.
Screenwriter Graham Yost just had his big break with “Speed” and was
paid a very high fee for this script, which he had been shopping around Hollywood
longer than the “Speed” script.
Big
names like Travolta and Slater were signed on to draw crowds, while well known
names and familiar faces, like Mathis, Grunton, Smith, Lindo, and Whaley rounded
out the cast. An unknown in the film business,
but not in sports, was Howie Long, a former Oakland Raider who would soon be
inducted into the NFL’s Hall of Fame, who was supposed to be a minor character
in the film, was extended to the whole film as the producers liked his
performance, and some critics claimed he looked like a life size GI Joe action
figure.
All of the film’s stunts were done on
location, and Slater and Long even did most or all of their own stunts.
However,
as with “Hard Target”, the film suffered from massive studio interference. John Woo’s original cut was much longer and
was said to include character development and extended action scenes. The Studio wanted more of a straight action
film, and either ordered Woo to cut the film down to size, or brought in their
own editors to cut it down to size. Many of the cuts were made to also appease the
ratings board.
Why I like this film:
This film came out during a change
of sorts in John Travolta’s career. He
seemed to have struck a chord with audiences for his performance in “Pulp
Fiction” and began to play the villain or anti-hero in the coming years. He would comment in later interviews that he
preferred playing the villain, as they seem to be more “free.” Christian Slater was maturing as an actor, no
longer playing a wise-cracking teenager, and looking to broaden his offerings past
teen comedies.
I liked Hans Zimmers score for this
film. His specific theme for Travolta’s
character made him seem all the more villainous while at the same time cool as
a cucumber about it. This is exemplified
when he kills Bob Grunton’s character for being annoying, then muses at how he found
the experience disappointing because it turned out to not be such a big
deal. The action sequences were
definitely up to par. John Woo, who in
my opinion was a much better big budget action director than Michael Bay, knew
his craft. The double fisting pistols, Mexican
standoffs, shootouts, explosions and the stand-alone sequence where Hale pulls
a Sig handgun, tucked in the back of Terry’s pants, as he drops to the floor
and subdues a henchman. An added bonus
for me was I noticed at one time that Casey Biggs, Demar of “Star Trek: Deep
Space Nine” played Deak’s helicopter pilot.
It was a nice addition to see looking back on this film.
The political aspect of the film,
as played by Kurtwood Smith and Frank Whaley, serves as breaks in the action,
and to give a little insight into how the government would react if nukes, even
allegedly, were lost or stolen. But
since the film was trimmed down, this aspect did seem to be forgotten towards
the end of the film, and no resolution for Secretary Baird or Giles Prentice
was ever seen in the film. A lot of fans (not of the film), have pointed
out that a “broken arrow” event is when nukes or nuclear components are lost or
misplaced, not stolen, and the threat of nuclear detonation out in the open or
near a civilian population is not likely.
The scenario of the film falls under an “empty quiver” event. Intentional theft of nukes or nuclear
material took place, one nuke was detonated, and the threat of nuclear
detonation was made very clear to the joint chiefs (Deak’s videotaped message
sent to the joint chiefs where he plainly says he will detonate if not paid). Broken Arrow was definitely a catchier title
for the film, because who wants to see an “Empty Quiver” or even cares what
that really means?
I remember being a sucker for
action flicks as a kid, and as I grew up, I couldn’t see why this movie didn’t stay
in favor with action flick fans. For
those who love action films but hate the poor script, acting and just over all
lousy quality of B-movie action flicks, this film is a much better
product. It may be like shilling out an extra
$20 for an imported beer over generic canned beer from the gas station, but
once you taste it, you know where that extra $ went to, and you’re grateful for
spending it.
The film is rated R for lots of language, one scene of gore,
lots of blood squibs (which I guess counts as gore too?), and lots of action
sequences. Again, a film that didn’t set
out to remake the wheel, but a film that fits its genre and niche for the fans who
just want to be entertained.
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