Nicholas Cage could have given the Joker a run for his money!

Rating: 7/10 (2 May 2010)

Castor Troy (Nicholas Cage) is an accomplished international assassin & Shaun Archer (John Travolta) is the head of an anti-terrorism police force. While on a mission to kill Shaun, Troy accidentally kills Shaun's little son. So, Shaun now makes it his life's mission to bring Troy to justice & gain peace of mind for himself. When Troy goes into a coma during his escape from the police, Shaun learns that he is planning to blow up a square mile of the city. So, with the help of ultramodern technology, Shaun transforms into Troy to get the information about the location of the bomb from Troy's younger brother & only three people know about this. Then Troy wakes up from his coma, transforms himself into Shaun, kills everyone who knows about the procedure & goes to live in Shaun's home. Can the real Shaun protect his family and thousands of people and show he is not Troy to everybody?
Nicholas Cage is one of my favorite actors and this was coming on TV last night and I decided to see it as it had been close to a decade the last time I saw it and I didn't remember anything. Some of my friends told me that Cage could have played the Joker in Batman, if this performance was anything to go by and provided he still looked like it (he is not this good looking now). I completely agree with them on this. The level of insanity and brilliance produced by Nicholas Cage in this movie is simply mind-blowing for its time. I mean, the Joker was not the standard bar for maniac characters on screen at the time this movie was made and Cage made Troy such a chilling presence. Even as Shaun, Cage was perfect. John Travolta (this is my second Travolta movie after 'The Taking Of Pelham 123' last year) couldn't carry out Troy's maniac part very convincingly (or I should say, as convincingly as Cage), except in the climax with Shaun's daughter. But, he was perfect as Shaun. I thought that Troy was beginning to have good feelings for the daughter, while he was teaching her how to defend herself and was trying to look at life from a fresh perspective. But, that was blown out of the window and I found out that he never had any sort of feelings for anybody but himself and his brother. Joan Allen as Shaun's wife, Eve was fine in her short role. Pollux Troy also was very convincing as the nerdy and somewhat maniac brother of Castor Troy.
Though the premise of the story is too far-fetched and the shoot-out between the main protagonists, whenever they meet, is insanely non-stop throughout the movie, it still entertains because of the powerhouse performance by Nicholas Cage and very credible acting from John Travolta. I hated the fact that most of the action scenes were made just to satisfy the fans, the climax was half an hour for god's sake. With this concept and these incredible actors, Face/Off's acting and dramatic scenes were so good that it would still be a great film without the shoot outs.
7/10