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Dom Robinson reviews

Broken Arrow

Distributed by

20th Century Fox

Cat.no: 08963 DVD
Cert: 15
Running time: 104 minutes
Year: 1995
Pressing: 2000
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 22 plus extras
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Surround
Languages: English
Subtitles: 11 languages available
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)
16:9-Enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: Yes
Disc Format: DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer

Director:

A Better Tomorrow, Blackjack, Broken Arrow, Bullet in the Head, City on Fire, Face/Off, Hand of Death, Hard Target, Heroes Shed No Tears, Just Heroes, The Killer, Once A Thief, Rich And Famous, Violent Tradition

Producers:

Mark Gordon, Bill Badalato, Terence Chang

Screenplay:

Graham Yost

Music:

Hans Zimmer

Cast:

Vic Deakins: John Travolta

Broken Arrow, Carrie, A Civil Action, Face/Off, The General's Daughter, Get Shorty, Grease, Look Who's Talking Trilogy, Mad City, Michael, Phenomenon, Primary Colors, Pulp Fiction, Saturday Night Fever, She's So Lovely, Shout, White Man's Burden

Riley Hale: Christian Slater

Bed of Roses, Broken Arrow, Gleaming The Cube, Hard Rain, Heathers, Interview with the Vampire, Kuffs, Mobsters, Murder in the First, The Name of the Rose, Pump Up The Volume, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, True Romance, Untamed Heart, Very Bad Things

Terry Carmichael: Samantha Mathis

Broken Arrow, Jack And Sarah, Little Women (1994), The Music of Chance, Pump up the Volume, The Thing Called Love

Colonel Max Wilkins: Delroy Lindo

Broken Arrow, Clockers, Feeling Minnesota, The Hard Way, Malcolm X, Ransom

Giles Prentice: Frank Whaley

Born on the Fourth of July, Broken Arrow, The Doors, Pulp Fiction, Retroactive, Swimming With Sharks

Pritchett: Bob Gunton

Ace Ventura 2, Broken Arrow, The Glimmer Man, In Pursuit of Honour, Patch Adams, The Shawshank Redemption, TV: Sinatra

Kelly: Howie Long

Broken Arrow, Dollar for the Dead, Firestorm

Lt. Colonel Sam Rhodes: Vondie Curtis-Hall

Die Hard 2, Eve's Bayou, Passion Fish, TV: Chicago Hope

Secretary of Defence, Baird: Kurtwood Smith

Broken Arrow, The Crush, Fortress, Robocop, Shelter

Broken Arrow is a high-octane action film from John Woo, best known as the director of many Hong Kong classics such as The Killer and City on Fire, and Graham Yost, the writer of 1994's smash-hit Speed.

The plot is simple. Co-pilots Vic Deakins (John Travolta) and Riley Hale (Christian Slater) are on a top-secret mission to deliver nuclear warheads from A to B. However, after years of flying together, Deakins has taken a turn for the worse and wants them for himself as he can sell them to the highest bidder, holding America to ransom in the meantime.

After overpowering Hale, ejecting said co-pilot from the Stealth Bomber, dumping the nukes, and then bailing out himself, blaming Hale in a message to base, the chase is on as Hale, accompanied by park ranger, Terry Carmichael (played by the babelicious Samantha Mathis) go after Deakins in a cat-and-mouse hunt to the death.

After years in the wilderness, John Travolta came back to the fore in Quentin Taranino's Pulp Fiction, and since then his halo has been allowed to shine with leading roles in Get Shorty and Phenomenon. He comes across superbly in this bad-guy role, taking no crap from Slater, and after any number of set-backs in winning the race, he always comes back for more.

Christian Slater is one of my favourite comedy actors, serving well in the likes of Heathers (co-starring with Winona Ryder), the little-known but excellent comedy Kuffs, and 1990's Pump Up The Volume in which he dated Samantha Mathis, hence Broken Arrow reunites them.

Support comes from the likes of Delroy Lindo, a black actor who tends to play the embittered boss, this time for Travolta and Slater, and previously in 1991's The Hard Way when he kicked James Woods into touch. Frank Whaley is a government agent who, on discovering that a Broken Arrow is a term relating to stolen nuclear missiles, has one of the best lines in the film, "I don't know what's worse. The fact that nuclear missiles have been stolen ...or that it happens so often there's a term for it(!)". Last but not least, Bob Gunton is the man who has paid Travolta to bring him the nukes, and was previously seen in 1994's The Shawshank Redemption as the embittered prison warden trying to kick Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman into touch.

While Fox have done the business as far as providing us with a widescreen anamorphic transfer in its original 2.35:1 ratio, can they explain why it has so much grain? (I'm a poet and I don't know it!)

Other than that, the average bitrate is a good 6.31Mb/s, often hovering around 7Mb/s.

The sound quality is perfect though. Let John Woo loose with a Hollywood budget, several explosions, fight scenes, shoot-outs, etc. all faithfully replicated here and you have an aural reason to be cheerful.

Extras :

Chapters and Trailer :

There are 22 chapters during the 104-minute film which is fine and the disc is coupled with a very good trailer which summarises the film well.

Languages and Subtitles :

There's just one language on this disc - English, but it is available in Dolby Digital 5.1. Subtitles come in 13 flavours: Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Portuguese, Hebrew, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Icelandic and English for the hearing impaired.

Menu :

The main menu is animated and scored and looks, at first, very good indeed. Clicking on an option sends a Stealth Bomber plane smashing through the picture of Travolta and Slater before revealing further options. However, it does this in a very jittery way indeed for no apparent reason and it takes the shine off it. The other menus are static and silent though.

I loved this film in the cinema and enjoyed it once again on DVD. However, while the picture quality does leave a lot to be desired, I don't know if the Region 1 DVD fares any better. It doesn't for extras as it doesn't have anything to add to what's on show here.

A review of the widescreen video can be found here.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.

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