A very nice action movie with plenty of breathtaking moments

Rating: 7/10 (23 February 2005)

It's been a while since I've had some good fun with an action movie that didn't annoy me too much for I don't know what reasons. And I have to admit: even though it didn't have the strongest start, "Face/Off" gave me a very good time thanks to the very good acting from John Travolta and Nicholas Cage and the interesting directing and camera work by John Woo.
Sean Archer (Travolta) is an FBI agent who has been chasing Caster Troy (Cage) for six years. He has been chasing Troy for six years, because Troy tried to shoot Archer and was able to hit him, but ended up killing Archer's son instead. When Archer finally succeeds in apprehending Troy, Troy tells him that, even though Archer arrests him, he has lost anyway, because Troy has planted a bomb somewhere. First they are convinced that he's bluffing, but when they arrest Troy's brother Pollux, they find out he was telling the truth and that there is a biological bomb somewhere. To find out where exactly, Archer will have to do something that has never been done before. Because Caster got in a deep coma and his fellows (who are all in jail now) think he's dead, Archer will take over his face. Thanks to some experimental cosmetic surgery, doctors are able to peel of Troy's face and put it on Archer's head. Archer, who now looks like Troy, goes to the jail, tries to find out everything about the bomb by questioning "his" accomplices, but of course something goes wrong. Troy awakes from his coma, takes over Archer's face (which was being preserved for the duration of the mission) and takes over Archer's life...
In the beginning, the movie isn't all that excellent. Only when both men have switched faces and identity, the real fun starts, reaching a climax during the last 45 minutes. Then there is plenty of action in the movie and often John Woo has portrayed it in a very original and spectacular way. But the real stars of this movie are Nicholas Cage and John Travolta. In the beginning of the movie I thought they weren't exactly casted perfectly. I thought it would be better for Cage to play the FBI agent and Travolta the terrorist (I didn't know yet what was to come), and was very pleased to see them play each other afterwards. It's very clear that they had a lot of fun doing that, which is very positive for the movie.
All in all this was one of the best action movies I've seen lately. And despite the fact that the beginning wasn't the strongest, I still had some great fun with it. That's why I give it a 7/10, perhaps even a 7.5/10