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Rating: 4 stars

All movies seen on 09/26/2007

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Face/Off (1997)

Directed by John Woo

Action

Most recently watched by sensoria, zombiefreak, jcdeleon1, krazykat, Javitron, schofizzy

Overview

In order to foil a terrorist plot, an FBI agent undergoes facial transplant surgery and assumes the identity of a criminal mastermind. The plan turns sour when the criminal wakes up prematurely and seeks revenge.

Rated R | Length 138 minutes

Actors

John Travolta | Nicolas Cage | Joan Allen | Alessandro Nivola | Gina Gershon | Dominique Swain | Nick Cassavetes | Harve Presnell | Colm Feore | John Carroll Lynch | CCH Pounder | Robert Wisdom | Margaret Cho | James Denton | Matt Ross | Chris Bauer | Myles Jeffrey | David McCurley | Thomas Jane | Tommy Flanagan | Dana Smith | Romy Windsor | Paul Hipp | Kirk Baltz | Lauren Sinclair | Ben Reed | Lisa Boyle | Linda Hoffman | Danny Masterson | Father Michael Rocha | Megan Paul | Mike Werb | Tom Reynolds | Steve Hytner | Carmen Thomas | John Bloom | Thomas Rosales Jr. | Walter Scott | Brooke Leslie | Cam Brainard | David Warshofsky | John Neidlinger | Norm Compton | Gregg Shawzin | Clifford Einstein | Marco Kyris | Tom Fridley | Andrew Wallace | Jacinto Rodriguez | Chic Daniel | Laurence Walsh | Tony Boldi | Khristian Lupo | William Morts | Darren Pele | Joan Beal | Neill Calabro | Jason Thomas Campbell | Tory Christopher | Robert 'Bobby Z' Zajonc | Del Zamora

Viewing History (seen 1 time)

Viewing Notes

This originally appeared as a DVD review for PopSyndicate.com.

What happens when two hammy action stars do battle? The world explodes? No, silly, they trade faces.

Oh, how I loved the early 1990s. Action films were running high with quippy, cheesy, over the top stuff like Independence Day, Con-Air, and Terminator 2. Directors wallowed in style and explosions and audiences cashed in. And then there was The Rock and Pulp Fiction. The Rock made Nic Cage into an everyman action star, while Pulp Fiction revived the failed career of Mr. Saturday Night Fever, John Travolta. It was only logical that the two come together into an orgasm of action awesomeosity.

Nic Cage is Castor Troy, world-renowned assassin and terrorist armed with golden guns. John Travolta is the tortured Sean Archer, world-renknowned FBI agent and leader of a secret anti-terrorist division. The two hate each other. Archer hates Troy because he killed his son and Troy hates Archer because Archer is his dogged persuer. When Archer finally captures Troy, he still has to run down Troy’s last plot and that requires him to go under the knife and become Castor Troy so that he can get the information he needs by going undercover at a Supermax prison. And then Castor wakes up from a coma, takes Archer’s face and then takes his life.

Even though the film introduced the novel concept of face transplants, the film is still more style than substance; there are few that do it better than John Woo. Even if you can always spot his trademarks, the man goes to the ends of the earth to turn his films into a ballet of death. Yes, there is sketchy tech and a handful of logistical plot holes, but Face/Off is still his most satisfying and fun American film to date. You always wonder what he’s going to do next.

While some of the ancillary actors are less than capable, Travolta and Cage do exactly what you want and expect: they’re magnified beyond belief. They both get to explore the dark side luckily, but each gets to revel in their best character traits: Travolta the shiny, extravagant villain and Cage the serious, dark victim. Alessandro Nivola also impresses as Pollox Troy, playing it like a sociopathic Buster Bluth.

The special edition is packed with more extras than you’d expect for a 10-year old movie. There are two commentaries, one with Woo and the film’s writers and then one with just the writers/producers. The former lends more of the history behind the film from Woo’s perspective and how he approached the script, while the latter is more of a writer’s technical track. There’s not much to the deleted scenes, because they don’t differ that much from the regular movie. Nonetheless, there is commentary and the movie’s writers and Woo attempt to explain why the scenes were changed or cut. The only deleted scene worth watching is the alternate ending, which is rather cliffhangery and twisted and you’re left wondering, ““Who is Sean Archer now?”” There are also five featurettes that go into detail about the making of the movie, from its origins as a futuristic sci-fi movie and the transformation into a modern day actioner with a sci-fi bent and a dose of human emotion. The featurettes can be summed up in one name: John Woo; they are 95% about him and his craft. In those pieces, there are extensive interviews with all of the principals, but as is lamely predictable, the only Cage and Travolta pieces were from old footage from 1997.

Maybe it’s because it wasn’t a franchise, but when you hear guys talking about great action films, you hear about your Terminators, Predators, and Die Hards, but for whatever reason you rarely hear about this film. Face/Off was one of the best action films of the 1990s and it shows how a great director and good actors can transform an average script into something that is memorable, beautiful and fun to watch.

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