Utter class, a scorching masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (21 November 2015)

Nicolas Cage Week: Day 6
There's action movies, and there's action movies... and then there's Face/Off. For me it's the snowy peak of hyper real, larger than life spectacles of sound, fury and music, composed by none other than Chinese maestro John Woo, whose first few films with Chow Yun Fat (The Killer, Hard Boiled and A Better Tomorrow are classics and textbooks for anyone looking to step into the genre) were a major success both back home and overseas, before making his first venture into American cinema with this solid gold masterpiece. From beginning to end it fires on all cylinders, never missing a beat or churning out an awkward moment, just a continuous ballet of bullets, largely drawn characters and set pieces all revolving together in perfect synergy, so that the two and a half hour running time feels slight. John Travolta and Nic Cage are simmering in the lead roles, each getting to showcase their rugged, hangdog hero elements as well as the playful boiling points of their violent, psychotic sides as well. They also get to parody each other splendidly, and let's be honest, who better than these two infinitely eccentric titans of twitchy, idiosyncratic work? Travolta plays gruff, world weary FBI Agent Sean Archer, on a relentless, revenge fuelled warpath against heinous, evil terrorist Castor Troy (Cage). When a kamikaze raid on his forces at an airport (the opening sequence will have your heart bouncing) leads to his capture and unfortunate coma, Archer races to find a solution before a bomb hidden somewhere in the LA area goes off. He is introduced to a hilarious, cutting edge medical science program in which faces can be transplanted onto other bodies, effectively transforming someone into... Nicolas Cage. He goes for it, and is implanted into the severely maximum security prison where Castor's creepy brother (Alessandro Nivola) is held, attempting to learn the whereabouts of aforementioned explosive device. Troy wakes from his slumber though, and forces the medical team to put Archer's face on him, and viola, suddenly Cage is Travolta and Travolta is Cage. They launch an all out war of insane proportions on each other, dragging each of their families and associates into one of the most jaw dropping, satisfying series of set pieces and battles I've ever seen in a film. The climactic shoot out in the church, the chaotic prison break and iconic stunt jump into the ocean, the boat chase that makes The Fast And The Furious look like a hotwheels commercial, the opening airport explosion, the incendiary raid on Troy's dockside safe house; all absolute stunners that will rock any sound system and inject the genre with a giddy love of mayhem for years to come. Cage and Travolta are at times so over the top we feel like they wandered in from a David Lynch film, but therein lies the fun of both their work: they're two mustangs cutting loose, trying to one up each other in both the deranged and the emotional departments, and their efforts carry the movie along on a thunderous, dizzying high of histrionics both introverted and screamingly extroverted. The supporting cast is dotted with old familiar faces too. Standouts include Joan Allen as poor Archer's confused, vulnerable wife, sexy Gina Gershon as Troy's tough old flame Sasha and Nick Cassavetes steals the show as his associate and partner in scumbuggery Dietrich ("Hey man, we had some laughs"), but there's also awesome work from Colm Feore, Robert Wisdom, Margaret Cho, Harve Presnell, CCH Pounder, John Carroll Lynch, Dominique Swain, Thomas Jane and Tommy Flanagan too. John Powell's raging, operatic score resonates uncannily with the events unfolding on screen with grace and fluidity of an expert making magic, as does Woo's flawless direction, and the talents of every person involved. It's in a word, epic.