Review of Face/Off (1997) by Caesar M — 23 May 2012

There was actually a time when both John Travolta and Nicholas Cage were actually fun to watch on big screen, in the 80s at least. Since then, they've been unimpressive with such failures as Travolta's Battlefield Earth (WORST SCI-FI MOVIE EVER) and Cage's Ghost Rider among many others. So one would think having these two stars in a movie would be a bad idea, but it's actually the exact opposite giving us a good action movie.

Face/Off is about Sean Archer (Travolta) who goes undercover after capturing his son's killer and terrorists Castor Troy (Cage). With Troy presumed dead, Archer goes undercover with Troy face through an advance medical procedural, as Troy does the same; both are pitted against each other. Face/Off story is unrealistic and requires the audiences to overlook realism and its many plot holes for enjoyment. For the most part the pace is pretty good building up to a great climax, though the action scenes are too far apart with very long dramatic scenes. As for the characters, the only real focus is on Troy and Archer relationship and hatred for each other. These two characters are the main driving force of the story and are written so well that you could just have some dumb fun with it. Secondary characters on the other hand don't do anything important to the stories and don't add much to the story. Face/Off has a story that doesn't require a lot of thinking from the audience to enjoy, it might be over the top, but it's largely enjoyable.

If you love slow-motion in your action movies than you'll love Face/Off. Every single action scene has slow motion which looks good at times, but takes away from the movie more exciting scenes. A majority of the time when any kind of weapon is fired there's slow motion dragging out these action scenes longer than they needed to be. The acting is great, though Nicholas is over the top sometime, especially his facial expressions. Both Cage and Travolta do a great job imitating each other acting traits. The movie also has some constituency problems; the most noticeable is Cage jumping out of a plane two times and the climax where Cage and Travolta tuxedo are wet in one cut and then becoming dry in another cut. It flaws can be easily overlooked as you drawn into the movie to much to care about any flaws it has.

Face/Off might not be as impressive as other movie in this genre, but it offers a great story with great character portrayed by two talented actors. While Travolta and Cage might not be big names any more, it's good to see they made some good movie to prove their talent.