“Broken Arrow” is a fun action flick with some very impressive action sequences. The film was directed by John Woo (“Hard Target”) and stars John Travolta (“Saturday Night Fever”, “Pulp Fiction”) and Christian Slater (“True Romance”). Woo and Travolta would go on to work together on “Face/Off”, which I actually think is somewhat better than “Broken Arrow” as it combines the spectacular action with a really intriguing premise.

In “Broken Arrow”, Riley Hale (Slater) and Vic Deakins (Travolta) are two U.S. Air Force pilots that are on a training exercise in a stealth bomber armed with nuclear missiles. Deakins is a traitor and drops the unarmed missiles in the middle of Utah so that he and a team of mercenaries can help a client blackmail the government. Hale must try to stop Deakins but he’s going to need the help of a park ranger (Samantha Mathis “American Psycho”).

John Travolta is over the top and amusing as the villain. I think Christian Slater is pretty underwhelming and wouldn’t have been my choice for the hero role. Samantha Mathis is okay as Terry the park ranger. The other characters are okay as we have the frantic government officials and the rough mercenaries that you always get in these types of films.

The action scenes in the movie are really exciting as we see several helicopters explode, chases involving cars and a runaway train, shootouts and fistfights. Unfortunately, the film is not without its flaws as I really wasn’t impressed with Slater and the plot is barebones. I think a lot of aspects of this movie felt very clichéd and I think people that watch a lot of actions movies will feel as though the writing for “Broken Arrow” is a little lazy. If you love John Woo’s “Face/Off” then “Broken Arrow” contains the same brand of explosive action scenes.