Broken Arrow (1996 film)

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Broken Arrow
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Woo
Written by	Graham Yost
Produced by	Mark Gordon Bill Badalato Terence Chang
Starring	John Travolta Christian Slater Samantha Mathis Delroy Lindo Frank Whaley Bob Gunton Howie Long
Cinematography	Peter Levy
Edited by	Joe Hutshing Steve Mirkovich John Wright
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	February 9, 1996 (1996-02-09)
Running time	108 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$50 million
Box office	$150.2 million

Broken Arrow is a 1996 American action-thriller film directed by John Woo, written by Graham Yost, and starring John Travolta, Christian Slater, and Samantha Mathis.^[1] The film's main themes include the theft of two American nuclear weapons, the attempts of U.S. military authorities to recover them, and the feud between Travolta and Slater's characters. The film was a commercial success despite mixed reviews.

Plot[]

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Major Vic "Deak" Deakins and Captain Riley Hale are pilots in the United States Air Force (USAF). They're assigned to a secret exercise flying a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber with two live B83 nuclear bombs over the western United States to test vulnerabilities to radar and gamma ray detection. After successfully evading Air Force radar, Deakins suddenly attacks Hale, trying to shoot him, and then ejects Hale from the plane. Deakins releases the two thermonuclear bombs without arming them; thus ensuring they won't detonate. As Deakins does this, he reports that Hale has gone rogue saying "Hale's lost it". He then ejects from the plane, leaving it to crash in a Utah National Park. A U.S. Park Service Ranger observes the plane fly low overhead before it crashes.

A USAF Pararescue team led by Chief Master Sergeant Rhodes is sent to find the missing nuclear bombs, declared as a "Broken Arrow" situation. The team first locates the downed plane and after checking the inside the bomb bay doors, they find that the bombs are gone. The search team eventually locates the bombs in a canyon, but is ambushed by unknown gunmen with automatic, suppressed weapons. Rhodes tries to disable the warheads on the bombs, to render them useless, but is killed by the only other search team survivor, Pararescueman Master Sergeant Kelly; who is serving as a mole for Deakins. Kelly calls back to the base, telling U.S.A.F. Colonel Max Wilkens that there's a heavy radiation exposure and the whole team is dead. Col. Wilkens recalls all other personnel that were inbound. Deakins arrives and plots his next move with partner-in-crime Pritchett, who is one of the financiers of the whole hijacking and plot. Pritchett has a team of ex-military mercenaries, including former Navy S.E.A.L.'s. They plan to blackmail the U.S. government with the threat of detonating a nuclear bomb in a populated area.

Hale, who survived the ejection, is detained by female U.S. Park Service Park Ranger Terry Carmichael. Carmichael who had been investigating unusual events in the park and had seen the plane crash. Hale instead convinces her to help him track down Deakins and the missing nuclear weapons. Pritchett and Deakins' mercenaries take the USAF search and rescue helicopter to hunt down and kill Hale, but Hale and Carmichael manage to bring it down. The loss of the helicopter forces Deakins' men to transport the two stolen nuclear bombs in Humvees they had arrived in.

Hale and Carmichael manage to carjack the Humvee with the nuclear bombs and escape from the Deakins to a nearby, abandoned copper mine that Carmichael was familiar with. Unbeknownst to them, that it is where Deakins and his team were headed to anyway. After taking the bombs into the mine, Hale starts to disable one of the nuclear bombs. Deakins reveals to Hale via radio that he has programmed it so that Hale's attempt to disarm the bomb will actually cause it to arm itself and detonate. Hale and Carmichael take the armed warhead down the shaft where they hope the mine is deep enough to contain the nuclear detonation. Before they can bring down the second nuclear bomb, Deakins' team arrives and secures it. After a gun battle deep in the mines, Deakins shortens the countdown of the armed bomb while leaving Hale and Carmichael trapped. He then destroys the keypad so no one can stop the device.

Hale and Carmichael escape via an underground river just before the nuclear bomb detonates. The bomb's nuclear electromagnetic pulse disables an approaching U.S. Department of Energy NEST helicopter, allowing Deakins and his team to escape with the one remaining stolen nuclear bomb. Deakins then kills Pritchett, having grown tired of his complaints and for straying from the mission plan. Carmichael and Hale track the mercenaries to a motorboat they're using to transport the nuclear bomb down the river. While trying to steal the boat, Carmichael is forced to hide on board, as military forces arrive and rescue Hale.

Hale deduces that Deakins intends to use a train to transport the nuclear bomb to Denver, CO. Colonel Max Wilkins decides to disobey orders in order to help Hale locate and retrieve the stolen nuclear weapon. Stowing away on the train, Carmichael tries to sabotage the nuclear bomb but is caught by Deakins, who arms the weapon. Catching up on a U.S.A.F. helicopter, Hale saves Carmichael before Deakins can throw her off the train. A gunfight ensues causing the helicopter to crash, killing Wilkins and most of the mercenaries.

Deakins had prepared a remote control that can either disarm or detonate the warhead and gets ready to depart the train on his own helicopter that's parked on a flatbed train car. Hale sabotages the helicopter's fuel pump causing it to explode and leaving Deakins and Kelly stranded with the active nuclear bomb. With his plan falling apart, Deakins decides to shorten the countdown timer out of spite. Kelly refuses to die, and holds Deakins at gunpoint, demanding that he disarm the bomb. Hale sneaks up on them during their standoff and kicks Kelly out of the boxcar to his death, then engages in a gun battle with Deakins.

Carmichael detaches the section of the train containing the nuclear bomb then gets into a shootout with the train engineer. The engineer is shot and falls on the train's brake control, thus activating them, and allowing the detached boxcars to catch up at increasingly higher speed. Deakins still has the remote detonator, so he forces Hale to drop his gun and challenges him to a fist fight. Hale eventually overpowers Deakins, acquires the remote detonator, disarms the weapon and leaps out of the train. As the detached boxcars slam into the halted front half, the nuclear bomb slams into Deakins, killing him, while the entire train derails and explodes. The nuclear bomb does not explode as the crash can't set it off. It can only be detonated by its internal controls.

Hale finds Carmichael and the dormant bomb. The two "formally" introduce themselves to each other amidst the wreckage.

Cast[]

• John Travolta as U.S.A.F. Major Vic 'Deak' Deakins
• Christian Slater as U.S.A.F. Captain Riley Hale
• Samantha Mathis as U.S. Park Service Park Ranger Terry Carmichael
• Delroy Lindo as U.S.A.F. Colonel Max Wilkins
• Frank Whaley as Giles Prentice
• Bob Gunton as Mr. Pritchett
• Howie Long as U.S.A.F Pararescueman Master Sergeant Kelly
• Jack Thompson as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
• Kurtwood Smith as Secretary of Defense Baird
• Vondie Curtis-Hall as U.S.A.F Pararescueman Chief Master Sergeant Sam Rhodes
• Daniel von Bargen as U.S.A.F. General Creely
• Jeffrey Stephan as Shepherd

Music[]

The original music score was composed by Hans Zimmer. An expanded double-disc limited set of the music score was released by La-La Land Records in February 2011. Also credited for additional music are Zimmer-regulars Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell.

The score is considered to be one of Zimmer's best action scores by fans and film critics. The opening track "Rope-A-Dope", also known as "Deakin's Theme" has been widely used in other films and media, including Scream 2 and Speed 2.^[2][3][4] The famous riff from "Rope-A-Dope" was played by legendary guitarist Duane Eddy, who Zimmer brought in for the entire Broken Arrow scoring session.^[5]

Production[]

Principal photography began on April 26, 1995. Some filming took place in and around the mountain areas of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Kane County, Utah. The lake scene with Hale and Carmichael was filmed at Lake Powell. The desert sequences were shot in the Mojave Desert near Barstow, California, and in Coconino County near Page, Arizona. The final climax scenes with Deakins and his men on the train, including the action sequence with Deakins and Hale fighting in the train car, were filmed on the privately owned Central Montana Rail, Inc. (CM) in Fergus County between Lewistown, Montana, and Denton, Montana.

In July 1995, a number of elaborate train cars were sent to the location in Lewistown, including several custom-built cars. Six weeks of filming on the forty mile track were required to capture all the stunts, helicopter action, gun battles, high falls and special effects sequences. Production photography was completed on August 28, 1995.

Release[]

Broken Arrow was No. 1 at the North American box office on its opening weekend grossing $15.6 million.^[6] It stayed on top for a second week and ultimately had a domestic gross of $70,770,147 and an international gross of $79,500,000, for a total worldwide gross of $150,270,147.^[7]

Reception[]

Based on 34 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 53% of critics gave Broken Arrow a positive review (18 "Fresh"; 16 "Rotten"), with an average rating of 5.7 out of 10. The site's consensus states: "John Woo adds pyrotechnic glaze to John Travolta's hammy performance, but fans may find Broken Arrow to be a dispiritingly disposable English-language entry for the action auteur."^[8] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 61, "generally favorable reviews" based on 21 reviews.^[9] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.^[10]

The review of this movie on Siskel & Ebert & the Movies represents the only time that Roger Ebert convinced Gene Siskel to change his mind about his final judgment of a film. Siskel initially gave the film a marginal "thumbs up" but changed it to a "thumbs down" after hearing Ebert's criticisms.^[11] Ebert called it "a slow, talky action thriller that plays like a homage to the Fallacy of the Talking Killer." This fallacy "occurs when all the bad guy has to do is pull the trigger, and his problems are over. Instead, he talks, and talks, until his target escapes from his predicament." Ebert queried the "purpose of a digital readout on a bomb. Who will ever see it, except in a mad bomber movie?" and summed up the film saying that it all "comes down to two guys fighting on a burning train for a channel-surfer".^[12]

See also[]

• 1996 in film
• Cinema of the United States
• List of American films of 1996

References[]

External links[]

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