Thermonuclear Disaster!

Thermonuclear Disaster!

By Michael Horowitz

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It used to be cool to be a John Woo fan. Even if you jumped on
the bandwagon after seeing "The Killer" or "Hard-Boiled" at a
midnight movie, you could still champion the Hong Kong
action-master who shot shoot-em-ups like ballets and painted
stories of honor and redemption with broad and energetic
strokes.

Then came "Hard Target," the brainless Van Damme adventure flick
that marked Woo’s American debut. Some reviews hailed it as the
second coming, most recognized it for the drivel it was, and just
about everybody stayed home. Woo fans took solace in rumors of
studio interference, hoping their hero wasn’t wholly responsible
for the travesty.

Unfortunately, yesterday was officially the last cool day to
support John Woo. Today, "Broken Arrow" appears on radar screens
everywhere, and John Travolta fans, Christian Slater fans, Samantha
Mathis fans, even Frank Whaley fans, and action afficionados
everywhere should steer clear. If you watch the "Broken Arrow"
trailer for an hour and a half, you get more thrills, more logic
and more performance. But if you’re a Woo fan trying to sit through
his newest bomb, the truth is going to hurt. The emperor of action
has been stripped of his talents.

"Broken Arrow" begins in a boxing ring, where older, smarter and
wiser Vic Deakins (Travolta) is teaching his young friend, Riley
Hale (Slater), those kernels of movie wisdom that transcend the
ring and provide the themes for the film. "Broken Arrow" empties
the bag of red-blooded action film platitudes: Do what they don’t
expect, have willpower, don’t give up, a Utah Park Ranger can beat
up a Navy Seal – the standards.

Then Deakins and Hale go fly a plane. Not just any plane – it’s
a computer generated stealth B3, and they are crack military
pilots. They cruise over the Utah landscape at 800 miles an hour
with two live nukes when the fun starts and Deakins pulls out a
gun.

When the music and sound effects die down, Deakins and his team
of thugs (among them the miraculously sturdy Howie Long) square off
against Hale and Ranger Carmichael (Mathis) in a
planes-trains-and-automobiles race to grab the warheads. There’s
plenty of action to go around, not enough sense to explain any of
it, and melodramatic directorial flourishes that keep reminding
viewers Woo no longer knows what he’s doing. Let’s not talk about
dialogue, story or acting because all are miserable, with the
possible exception of Travolta. He’s trying a little too hard to be
hip here, but aside from a few missteps, it works.

Woo’s stylistic tricks are at the heart of what’s wrong with
"Broken Arrow." Anyone who’s seen his patented inches-away Mexican
standoff won’t be impressed with Slater’s and Mathis’ renditions.
Anyone who liked a slow-motion Chow Yun-Fat will be less impressed
with a blurry, grinning Travolta. And anyone who’s watched a
high-body-count gunfight in any of Woo’s Hong Kong films will
attest to the unabashed lousiness of "Broken Arrow’s" action.

Woo likes his gunplay up close and personal, which is inherently
more cinematic, but also inherently nonsensical. Typically, in a
Woo film, when a bad guy’s got a gun, the protagonist’s strategy is
to grab two guns and run right at him. OK, it’s not quite genius,
but it looks great when Chow does it. Hell, it’s even fun when Van
Damme tries it. But Christian Slater? Samantha Mathis? Neither
possess the superhuman charisma needed to overthrow the specter of
realism. Slater’s unconvincing Hale makes Keanu Reeves’ turn in
"Speed" even more applaudable, and Mathis is in over her head. The
two form a partnership of laughable lines and uninteresting
heroism.

Somewhere between the vacuum the leads leave and the gap the
plot’s supposed to fill, the movie falls apart. But it’s not a
total loss. You can still play "count the continuity errors" with
your fellow victims (especially during the mistake-filled,
incomprehensible middle section). If you keep track of what Mathis
is wearing from scene to scene, your eye will prove superior to the
filmmakers’.

This weekend, give an action fan you know an early Valentine’s
gift. Take them to any John Woo film but "Broken Arrow."

FILM: "Broken Arrow." Opens everywhere today. Grade: D

Photo illustration by GARETH SMITH/Daily Bruin

Christian Slater plays Riley Hale in the new action film,
"Broken Arrow."

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