Broken Arrow (1996)
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. 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.RELATED:
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Plot.
Major Vic “Deak” Deakins and Captain Riley Hale, pilots in the United States Air Force (USAF), are assigned to a secret exercise flying a stealth bomber with two B83 nuclear bombs. After successfully evading Air Force radar, Deakins suddenly attacks Hale and ejects him from the plane. Deakins releases the bombs without activating them, then reports that Hale has gone rogue. He ejects from the plane, leaving it to crash in a Utah state park. A USAF team led by Lt. Colonel Rhodes is sent to find the missing warheads, declared as a “Broken Arrow” situation. The search team eventually locates the warheads in a canyon, but is ambushed by mercenaries. Rhodes tries to disable the warheads but is killed by the other search team survivor, Master Sergeant Kelly, who is serving as a mole for Deakins. Deakins arrives and plots his next move with Pritchett, the mercenaries’ financier. They plan to blackmail the US government with the threat of detonating the warhead in a populated area.
Hale, who survived the ejection, is arrested by park ranger Terry Carmichael, who had been investigating the unusual events in the park. He instead convinces her to help him track down Deakins. Deakins’ mercenaries commandeer a USAF search and rescue helicopter to kill Hale, but Hale and Terry manage to bring it down.
The loss of the helicopter forces Deakins’ men to continue in Humvees.
Hale and Terry carjack the Humvee with the warheads, escaping to a nearby abandoned copper mine, where Hale starts to disable one, only for Deakins to reveal via radio that he has programmed it so that Hale’s attempts to disarm it will cause the bomb to activate. Hale and Terry take the armed warhead down the shaft, where the mine is deep enough to contain the nuclear blast. Before they can bring down the second warhead, Deakins’ team arrives and secures it. After a gun battle deep in the mines, Deakins shortens the countdown of the armed warhead while leaving Hale and Terry trapped.