could be preposterous... actually, it is, but Woo,Travolta/Cage make it astounding and entertaining

Rating: 9/10 (21 April 2010)

John Woo hit a high-point in his US film career in Face/Off, where he took the method of filming action scenes like mad operas (or the other way around) that he did in a film like Hard Target and put it in the context of an actually strong script. This doesn't mean that the concept that's presented - that a terrorist who knows where a gigantic bomb in LA will detonate, and is now in a coma, and whose face is ripped off and put on the secret agent who was tracking him for years so the agent can find out the bomb's whereabouts and then the terrorist wakes up from the coma and puts on the agent's face - is entirely plausible. Not for a second. The film was originally set in the future, which is easy to see, and in other hands (less capable ones) it could be a stupid sci-fi channel original movie.
In John Woo he sees that the character set-ups and relationships are way too strong to ignore, and the line drawn between supposed good and bad can be blurred in the face of such an outrageous/clever premise. He hits new heights in filming his action sequences, from the gun battles (and boy there's a lot) to the big motor-boat chase that happens as the climax, to little but wild things like putting 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' for just a half a minute in a blazing gun battle scene. The action has that thrilling sensation of movement and dazzle that Woo had in his HK flicks; if any film comes closest to the relentless intensity of something like Hard Boiled, it's this one (and you know it's just shamelessly by its maker in that church scene, with the doves and the church and the guns and the Mexican stand-off and so on).
I haven't mentioned the stars yet? This is a must to understand the appeal of Face/Off (or, for some, the lack thereof). Nicolas Cage and John Travolta get to have their cake and eat it, play the good but conflicted hero agent Archer (Travolta-cum-Cage) and the overly dastardly villain who just likes to have FUN in big capital letters (Cage-cum-Travolta). While the writing creates some subtext as to deeper levels of interpretation- I'm sure the film could easily be a Jungian thesis project- the actors just enjoy trying (and succeeding) to catch up to Woo's level of high-voltage action and mayhem. Both actors eat up scenery, or sometimes just let the double-level of meaning in the scene take over. When Cage dances in the Priest-frock and sings with the chorus, we know he's going to town, and when Travolta (as that character) smokes a cigarette the first time around his daughter ("Papa's got a brand new bag") we can feel the gleeful horror in the room.
Sure, eventually the characters are put into a matter of just fists-on-fists, which seems to diminish what other variables of outcome these characters could get into. But then again, it's also a not-guilty pleasure of Hollywood popcorn movie-making, smart and effective in drawing out the characters' conflicts and what those around them have to come to realize (or not, as they may be dead sooner rather than later), and, more often than not, it's cheerfully funny in itself. It's like a comic-book concept brought to life and pumped with Woo-stylized bullets and octane - or, in another way, it's like what Michael Bay films try so hard to be and fall flat on their faces in chaos.