Action, action, action... ok, enough...

Rating: 6/10 (26 May 2002)

Spoiler Alert Most of the people who like John Woo seem to like him because of his mastery at shooting action scenes. While I am not a conossieur of Woo's cinematic career, after witnessing Mission: Impossible II -- a film that was as big a box office success as it was a debacle in the creativity department -- and the superior Face/Off, I must say that while Woo's talent at putting action onscreen is noteworthy, it seems also his biggest weakness. Under his direction, explosions and stylized cartoon-like violence are sometimes superbly done, sometimes overlong and overblown; but the real problem with Woo's action is when it grows obtrusive and it becomes tedium in a script that should have been tight and tense. Mission: Impossible II was all tedium, and it constantly resorted to slow-mo shootings and explosions to hide the fact that the script was as lame as they come. Face/Off, despite the preposterous premise, has a script that is tight and intense in more than one occasion, but that also goes limp towards the end when more than a few interesting plot points are simply shaken off by action sequences.
Sean Archer (John Travolta) is a FBI agent who, during an attempt to stop the notorious master criminal Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) lost his young son. Archer, a man dedicated to his family and his job, struggles with the pain caused by the loss and is looking forward to finally arrest Troy; six years later the occasion finally comes and, after a sensational airplane chase, Archer captures both Castor Troy's brother Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) and Castor Troy himself who, victim of an accident, is taken to an hospital in an apparently irreversible coma. Buth things are not as easy as they seem.
Apparently, a major bomb had been planted somewhere in Los Angeles and the two criminal brothers are the only ones who know where it is located and how to disarm it. But as Pollux -- who does not know about his brother's accident -- refuses to reveal any details unless he can speak to Castor, there is nothing left to do but have Sean Archer himself go through a few cosmetic changes, a little bit of liposuction, and a facial surgery to (gulp!) wear Castor Troy's real face! And what if the real Castor Troy suddenly wakes up and 'wears' Archer's face, so that one looks exactly like the other? Yep, you've guessed it right.
I heard a lot of people complaining about how 'unrealistic' and 'unbelievable' the premise is. Well people, get over it. Blaming this film of being unrealistic is like blaming Being John Malkovich of the same thing. I am as picky as the next guy when it comes to implausibility, but there are movies meant to be realism and movies that are not. Suspension of disbelief, and tons of it, is obviously essential for Face/Off.
Providing we accept the impossible premise, the film stays for the most part enjoyable, before it eventually goes overboard and becomes a chaotic action overkill. We are provided with a plot, the swap of identities, that has been used a lot of times in cinema and literary works, especially for comedies. Here however, it is used with dramatic efficacy in quite a few scenes, and it delivers some scenes that are emotionally engaging and tense, and that at times even scratch the surface of intellectually challenging material. Not that script is without flaws; the sequence where Sean Archer (now played by Nicolas Cage!) escapes from a maximum security prison, for instance, is quite sloppy and hard to digest. But seeing the two arch-enemies exploring each other's world and trying to cope with it, thereby becoming the other person, is definitely interesting.
This also brings me to the bad part of the movie; while Face/Off does not have the ambition of being a 'thought-provoking' or philosophical movie, I simply do not understand the need of shaking off certain plot points through overlong action scenes whose outcome is absolutely predictable. Also, action -- no matter how well shot -- is involving as long as it is used with parsimony; the initial sequence that leads to the arrest of the Troy brothers is perfect, because it stops before getting tiresome. The final hero vs. villain sequence not only is overlong, but it does not feel right: suddenly, everything between the two enemies -- including a hint at emotional attachment to each other's world -- is resolved by a sequence where all the villains die and all the good people stay alive, and where people miss their targets whenever the director feels like we need to see more. It feels as the film is afraid of having become a thriller more than an action movie.
The acting by the two leads is fairly good. Neither of them is between my favorite actors, but I enjoyed them much more here than I did in many other movies.
Face/Off is both a moderate success and a moderate failure but, despite all its flaws, gets my recommendation. Although I doubt Woo will ever become one of my favorite directors, I must say that this film gave me the impression that he can, indeed, do good things.
6/10