Broken Arrow starts as pilots Captain Riley Hale (Christian Slater) & Major Vic Deakins (John Travolta) board a Stealth bomber equipped with two nuclear missiles, they fly the Stealth over the Utah desert in what was supposed to be a routine mission to monitor radiation levels but Deakins tries to kill Hale in an attempt to steal the nuclear weapons. Hale manages to eject from the Stealth before Deakins kills him, Deakins then drops the unarmed bombs & ejects himself leaving the plane to crash. Having witnessed the crash park ranger Terry Carmichael (Samantha Mathis) goes to investigate & finds Hale, meanwhile Deakins has managed to trick the army into thinking the nuclear weapons have been breached & therefore rescue teams cannot be sent in. With easy access to the bombs he intends to bribe the Government into paying a ransom or he'll use them to wipe out half of the country, that is unless Hale & the park ranger can stop him & his men...<br /><br />Directed by John Woo Broken Arrow was his second American action film after the fabulous Hard Target (1993), I personally rate Broken Arrow, & Hard Target for that matter, as one of my favourite over-the-top action flicks from the 90's & for that I apologise to no-one. The script by Graham Yost is as action packed as they come, there's loads of shoot-outs, fights, explosions, crashes, vehicular mayhem & near misses. Most people seem to think the basic story is pretty far fetched & I have to agree but it's by no means sillier than a lot of 90's action flicks like Speed (1994) for instance. What I like about it is that it moves along like a rocket & there isn't enough time between all the fights & explosions for small things like plot holes to make any huge difference. I also liked the character's here, the relationships between Hale & the sexy park ranger & between Hale & Deakins in particular, I just thought the character's & the way they were written & developed were better than the average action flick with themes like friendship & betrayed. I liked it, a lot.<br /><br />Director Woo knows how to turn in a decent action flick & he doesn't disappoint here, while the unmistakable style of his earlier Hong Kong films may have been slightly sterilised by Hollywood the set-pieces in his films still remain very impressive. Broken Arrow probably has more helicopters being blown up & crashing than any other single film I think I've ever seen. Some of the explosions are huge, the fights are varied & well staged & most of the action is done the good old fashioned way on set in camera with real stunt men & real explosions rather than awful CGI computer effects which have become commonplace. The only scene which really made me cringe was when Hale falls off the back of the truck & he then picks himself up, runs after it, catches it up & jumps on the back! I don't think so, the truck itself had at least a 10 second head start before we even discuss how slow it would have to have been going for Hale to physically run after it & catch it up. The violence isn't too excessive, there's not much blood in it & the violence isn't sadistic or gloating as in say a lot of Steven Seagal films.<br /><br />With a supposed budget of about $65,000,000 Broken Arrow is well made with that Hollywood polish about it, the special effects are good & there's plenty of big bangs & explosions for the money. The acting is alright, I liked Travolta (who was apparently paid $7,000,000 for this) as the villain in particular but he does come across as a bit theatrical at times, I thought Mathis was fine as the love interest although I thought Slater was a bit bland & forgettable as the hero.<br /><br />Broken Arrow is a great action film, it has a good cast, great action scenes, loads of explosions, better than usual character's & it moves along at a good pace. I thought it was great & it's as simple & straight forward as that.