One of the best action movies ever made.

Rating: Null/10 (21 June 2003)

After non-events, such as the disappointing HARD TARGET and the fun-but-insignicant BROKEN ARROW, John Woo finally achieved his potential for making great action movies with Hollywood's money.
Using an amusingly improbable plot, Woo fleshes the bones of the script with some truly amazing action sequences, such as the speedboat chase and the apartment shoot-out. Woo shines as bright in the West that he did in the East, with films like THE KILLER and HARD-BOILED. Starting with a scene that most films would be happy to climax with, a jumbo-jet and chopper chase, notorious villain Castor Troy (snarling Nicholas Cage) is comatose. All is said done, until anti-terrorist agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) discovers that Troy has planted a bomb somewhere in downtown LA, to go off any time soon. So, through the wonders of medical science, Archer swaps faces with Troy, to infiltrate a high security prison and get the location of the bomb off Troy's weedy brother. But problems begin when the real Castor Troy wakes up, sans mug, and decides to get his own back by nicking Archer's. Roles are reversed, in a very Grecian way.
Travolta and Cage bounce off each other fantastically well, and it is good two potentially brilliant actors working in unison so well. Supporting cast, such as Joan Allen, the delicious Domanique Swain, and the ever reliable CCH Pounder add good back-up. The story could not be more implausible if Dolph Lundgren played Travolta's wife, or if suddenly Charles Bronson turned up in a blonde wig as his daughter, but you can forgive that for the sheer breakneck speed Woo goes at, and the fact that how original the plot actually is. One of the truly great action thrillers of the '90s, this breathed new life into a genre dominated by yet more LETHAL WEAPONs, Arnie, and Stallone. A new, interesting variation on the old Good vs. Evil theme, with a neat schizophrenic twist in its tale. If you haven't it already, I urge you too now - it's the best movie John Woo will ever make in the West, espcially if you've seen (groan) M:I-2 and WINDTALKERS. Go, see, now.