Not/Terrible, but Not/Great either.

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2002)

I'm not sure what happened when this film came out. It was like the John Woo Fan Club decided this was in fact the best action film ever, and those fans who could spell went on to hail it as an allegory of our times, a social commentary, a fundamental battle of good vs evil, best special effects ever, yadda yadda yadda.
I watched it and thought "Hmm. That's 2 hours of my life I won't get back."
Don't misunderstand me - I'm not some hairless, vegan excuse for a man, nor am I someone who only watches impenetrable European angst dramas. I love action movies, and I really like Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, but I thought this film was put together as some sort of showcase for the pyrotechnic stunt coordinators, and they completely forgot to plot the movie beyond a few scribblings on the back of a napkin.
I gave the movie 7/10, so I didn't hate it. I thought the leads were charismatic (in a ridiculously over-the-top way), I thought Gina Gershon did a great job of looking amazing and had a few good lines, and although obvious within the plot - I enjoyed the scenes where 'Castor Troy' proves himself to be a more protective and passionate husband than 'Sean Archer', particularly the 'Al Bundy-esque' scenes with the daughter's boyfriend.
That said, I remember the PR interviews at the time going on and on about how Cage & Travolta spent ages studying each other's mannerisms to 'pretend' to be the other one under his skin. Well, I've seen more restrained subtlety on Saturday morning kids TV, and that whole touchy-face thing Archer does is ridiculous to the point of comedy - even a particularly touchy-feely blind person wouldn't stroke everybody's face every time he sees them! And although I feel a little guilty about saying it, I don't think Joan Allen was a very convincing casting (and that's not a comment on her acting) - just on the fact that she could almost have played Travolta's mother. With the notable exception of Gershon, Troy's gang were a forgettable bunch of characatured misfits, and his brother (Pillox?) was an unsympathetic nuisance.
On the action itself - the 'stopping the plane taking off' was silly, the gunfight in the hanger was silly (reminded me of the A-Team's shooting accuracy, only without the humour), the very notion of an FBI agent secretly undergoing a radical (and speedy) complete face-lift was laughable (Darkman was more convincing), the magnetic-boots prison was straight out of a Christopher Lambert movie, I couldn't concentrate anyway because Archer's boss and the prison bully-guard were both in Fargo, the prison scenes were cliched and dumb, the moments where Archer turns to Troy's friends were predictable and not very well acted, the FBI raid was another triumph of OTT destruction (and that mirror face-off, well - silly).. ..I did like the scenes where Troy plays Archer's father/husband role.. ..then we're back to a cliched shootout in a chapel (John Woo - your white doves just look like a spoof-joke now.. and (c)Reservoir Dogs for the stand-off - I don't care where it may have been done before), the speedboat chase which was WAY below James Bond standard (pretty poor actually), and then the mega-obvious harpoon gun setup, leading to a convenient happy ending.
I watched Face/Off on TV again (it's about the third time now), because I wanted to consider it again, and you know what - it was still silly rubbish. Entertaining rubbish, but still rubbish.
PS. I really liked Mission Impossible 2, so I'm not totally against Woo either. Still, if I want to see top-notch action, I'll choose Dobermann or Leon anyday.
PPS. I also lost concentration at the first lab scene when I got a shiver seeing Doctor Walsh - only much later did I recognise him from "Storm Of The Century" - GO SEE IT PEOPLE!