BROKEN ARROW (31)

Directed by: John Woo

Starring: John Travolta, Christian Slater

The Pitch: An Air Force pilot gone bad threatens the world with a bunch of nuclear warheads - or something. (Can't really remember the details I'm afraid.)

Theo Sez: A so-what action movie that begins promisingly but soon lapses into resounding ordinariness. Once the exposition is over - starting with our hero's first, highly unconvincing successes, taking out the chopper and intercepting the warheads - it seems to have been written by remote control, one mini-confrontation after another, all of them resolved without imagination and with frequent recourse to the most tiresome straight-to-video cliches (has machine-gun fire ever been so inaccurate?). The terrific supporting cast (all of whom are wasted) was presumably attracted by the John-Woo-is-God hype, but in truth there's very little in the way of directorial flair. Except for a couple of touches - like the almost lyrical bit with the charred twenty-dollar bill at the very end - and the unusual score a la Morricone, there's nothing in this underwhelming, undistinguished movie that couldn't have been done by the likes of Renny Harlin and Andrew Davis.