Lame Title But Great Movie

Rating: 8/10 (28 March 2009)

OK, I know the title is supposed to be kind of a joke. "Hey, they're gonna fight each other AND they have their faces taken off! I have the PERFECT name for this movie!" But I can forgive the weak name because the premise and action are actual up to par.
Starring Nicolas Cage (before his recent binge of stinkers) and John Travolta (before we all realized how untalented he was), the movie follows an FBI agent (Travolta, at least at the beginning) who has his face switched with that of his comatose nemesis (who just so happens to be the murdered of his son) in order to infiltrate a prison and retrieve information about a bomb. So Travolta becomes Cage and enters this prison, just in time for the coma to end and a faceless Cage to become Travolta. And because the "mission" was highly secretive and known only to a few people, Bad Guy (as I will refer to him) kills anyone who knew Good Guy was in the pen. So Bad Guy gets to go home and sleep in Good Guy's bed while he rots in jail. Well, Good Guy is able to break out and convince his wife that Bad Guy is not really him, all leading to the aforementioned face off.
The acting is about what you'd expect from a late 90s Nicolas Cage. Travolta has some fun being the crazy man and Joan Allen does a good job as Dr. Wife caught in the middle.
As an action film with some suspense mixed in, the films works quite well. It's not the smartest movie ever made but it will keep your attention. Definitely worth a viewing if you need some gun fire set to a good gimmick.