An Action film with meaning

Rating: 9/10 (27 January 2012)

This movie rocks. Where John Woo failed in Broken Arrow he really succeeded here. The movie is fast and the action sequences are brilliant. On top of that Woo has some brilliant cinematographic shots. He shows the shots down at the most appropriate moments and thus the scene becomes really effective.
The plot is sort of simple. It is about an FBI agent, Sean Archer, who is chasing terrorist Castor Troy. The opening on the movie has Castor and his brother Pollux (as in the Greek mythological figures Castor and Pollux) caught after they chase down a jet and a huge gunfight through an airplane hanger. The problem is is that Castor has planted a bomb somewhere and Archer needs to find it before he detonates it. Castor is in a coma and Pollux is in prison; so using the most advanced surgical techniques, Archer swaps faces with Castor and infiltrates the prison. Then the twist happens. Castor wakes up to find his face missing and Archers face just lying around, so he takes his face and the roles reverse.
Woo states that this movie is about trial through suffering. This is very much true in Archer's case. Only three people know that he has swapped faces with Castor and those three are murdered. This means that Castor walks in and takes over his life leaving Archer stuck in prison with no way to prove that he is not Castor. Castor walks around with the power of Archer and no morals, while Archer has to fight back yet he finds himself struggling with facing many temptations as people believe him to be Castor. He cannot reveal himself because that means that he will die, yet to become Castor in personality means that he will turn his back on everything that he believes in.
After Castor is first arrested, everybody is cheering Archer, but Woo does an interesting thing here. Archer does not bask in the glory of his success, but rather his mind is on those who had lost their lives trying to catch Castor. Woo is subtly trying to show us here that though the action scenes here are brilliant, there is death and suffering behind them. Archer is not an emotionless cop who doesn't care about the nameless agents who are killed. To Archer each of the people that are killed were his colleagues and there is an attachment to them. Even when they are trying to kill him when he is Castor he cannot bring himself to kill them for they are his friends.
Another interesting idea that comes out of the film is the idea about how beauty is only skin deep. What we see on the outside is not really what we see on the inside. Woo has done this by simply switching faces. Though one person may seem to be nice on the outside, on the inside they are rotten to the core. We see the body of Archer go bad while the body of Castor go good. Though one person may be very good, there are other motivations behind this deep down, while those who are incredibly bad, as is Castor, are not beyond redemption.