Face/Off

Rating: 8/10 (8 November 2005)

The title of the film refers to two things, the battle between the villain and the hero, and literally faces coming off, from director John Woo (Broken Arrow, Mission: Impossible II). Basically Sean Archer (John Travolta) lost his little boy when he was killed (accidently) by the evil Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). Five years on, Sean manages to catch Troy, and he is put in a coma, but he did not stop a bomb set before. To find the bomb, he has to question Troy's brother Pollux (Jurassic Park III's Alessandro Nivola) in prison, and the only way he can do this is to become him, with the latest surgery they can transplant Castor's face and connect it to his. Sean as Castor now in prison manages to fool the brother into telling the location of the bomb, but he wasn't counting on the real Castor waking up from his coma (because of the pain) and taking his face! Sean is very angry when Castor tells him he'll be banging his wife Dr. Eve Archer (The Bourne Supremacy's Joan Allen), but he manages to escape the prison, and is now on the run, and hiding out in Castor's hideouts till he get to his wife and convince her it is him underneath the face she so fears. What is really interesting is both men have to see the family lives they both share, Castor (as Sean don't forget) has to see the grave stone of the boy he killed, and Sean (vice versa) finds out that Castor has a son with on-off lover Sasha Hassler (Bound's Gina Gershon), oh, and Sean does manage eventually to convince his wife that behind the face of Castor he is him, but in the end, after the final large fight Castor had to die, Sean gets his face back, and because Sasha died, the son lives with his family. Also starring Dominique Swain as Jamie Archer, Nick Cassavetes as Dietrich Hassler, Patch Adams' Harve Presnell as Victor Lazarro, Colm Feore as Dr. Malcolm Walsh and Volcano's John Carroll Lynch as Walton the Prison Guard. Travolta and Cage play each other perfectly, and the chase sequences and violence is really cool. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Sound Effects Editing. John Travolta was number 46, and Nicolas Cage number 33 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars, Travolta was also number 38 on The 100 Greatest Sex Symbols, he was number 63 on The 100 Greatest Pop Culture Icons, and he was also number 46 on The World's Greatest Actor. Very good!