Broken Arrow

Broken Arrow is a 1996 American action motion picture starring John Travolta as Major Vic Deakins with Christian Slater as Captain Riley Hale. The plot is rather simplistic, about Deakins and a terrorist group trying to steal two nuclear bombs. The nuclear bombs are loaded on the stealth bomber which Deakins and Hale fly, so Deakins attempts to kill Hale, jettison the bombs, and crashland the plane. The rest of the film focuses on Hale's attempts to stop Deakins and the terrorists, assisted by a female park ranger (played by Samantha Mathis).

The screenplay was written by Graham Yost and was directed by John Woo. Broken Arrow was released on Friday, February 9, 1996 and although it was disappointing to die-hard fans of the director John Woo's other films, it was modestly successful.

One major factual inaccuracy is the description of the stealth bomber as the "B-3". This can only have been intentional as the B-2 Spirit entered service three years before the film was released; perhaps this is a reference to the much-talked about "secret" successor to the current Spirit bomber in service.

Another factual inaccuracy is the film's name itself. In official United States military nuclear incident terminology, a PINNACLE - BROKEN ARROW is "an accidental event involving nuclear weapons or nuclear components but does not create the risk of nuclear war". The actual term for "the seizure, theft, or loss of a nuclear weapon or nuclear component" is PINNACLE - EMPTY QUIVER.

Trivia

• John Travolta was given the choice of playing either Deakins or Hale in the film. He chose the villain Deakins.
  
  
• Director John Woo originally wanted Hale to die during the film.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [John Woo] [guns] Riley uses two guns in the mine.
  
  

• Director Trademark: [John Woo] [unusual hand-to-hand weapons] On the train, Terry kicks the helicopter's tail-rotor against Shepherd's arm to knock him off-balance.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [John Woo] [reflection] Riley sees the reflection of Deakins pulling a gun on him in the cockpit.
  
  
• The phrase "broken arrow" is not actually used to refer to the theft of nuclear weapons from the U.S. - that's known as an "empty quiver." A "broken arrow" is when a warhead is part of an accident, such as being accidentally fired.
  
  
• Samantha Mathis plays Terry Carmichael, the love interest of Christian Slater's character Riley Hale. She also played the love interest of Slater's character in the movie Pump Up the Volume (1990).
  
  
• The pistol used by Vic Deakins is a Beretta 93R 3rd Generation model
  
  
• Halle Berry was turned down for a role as a park ranger
  
  
• Jennifer Aniston was considered for the role of park ranger Terry Carmichael.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [John Woo] [mexican stand-off] Twice - Once between Carmichael (Samantha Mathis) and Hale (Christian Slater) when they first meet in the Utah desert and once with Deakins (John Travolta) and Kelly (Howie Long) on the train.
  
  
• During the final few blows of the last fist fight, as Hale is punching and kicking, growls and roars of large cats (i.e. lions, tigers, etc.) can be heard.
  
  
• In the mine, the assault rifle that Deakins uses, is a Ruger AC556 with folded stock, aka Mini-14GB.
  
  
• Christian Slater turned down a role in Assassins (1995) to work with director John Woo.
  
  
• As preparation for his role in this movie, Christian Slater gave up smoking.
  
  
• To promote the film, the publicity unit sent sunglasses resembling the ones worn by John Travolta to media outlets. The sunglasses had the Broken Arrow logo printed on the lower left lens.