Broken Arrow

Directed by John Woo, Broken Arrow follows fighter pilot Riley Hale (Christian Slater) as he and an earnest park ranger (Samantha Mathis’ Terry Carmichael) team up to prevent John Travolta’s Vic Deakins from absconding with a fully-functional nuclear weapon. There’s never really a point at which Broken Arrow manages to become anything more than a watchable, passable thriller, as the movie, written by Graham Yost, suffers from a fairly erratic narrative that lurches from sequence to sequence with little thought to momentum. (This proves to be especially true in terms of figuring out the logic and mechanics behind Deakins’ needlessly complicated plan.) It’s not surprising, then, that the picture is at its best when focused on the simpler aspects of Yost’s storyline, while the movie benefits substantially from the efforts of an exceedingly able cast that includes Delroy Lindo, Bob Gunton, and Frank Whaley – although it remains clear that Travolta’s scenery-chewing, go-for-broke performance remains an obvious highlight from start to finish. The exciting train-set-climax, though ludicrous, ensures that Broken Arrow ends on a relatively positive note, which ultimately does cement the movie’s place as a decent yet disappointingly forgettable endeavor.

**1/2 out of ****