FACE/OFF (Paramount) Starring: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola. Screenplay: Mike Webb and Michael Colleary. Producers: David Permut, Terence Chang, Christopher Godsick, Barrie M. Osborne. Director: John Woo. MPAA Rating: R (violence, profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 135 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
In John Woo's FACE/OFF, two men exchange faces. They don't wear masks of one another or impersonate one another -- they actually, physically exchange faces. Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) is an infamous international terrorist; Sean Archer (John Travolta) is a Federal anti-terrorist agent who has been obsessed with Castor for six years since Castor was responsible for the death of Archer's young son. After Castor is rendered comatose during his capture, Archer learns that Castor has left a bomb filled with nerve gas somewhere in Los Angeles. Only Castor's imprisoned, paranoid brother Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) also knows the bomb's location, leading Archer to submit to a radical procedure: he will have his own faced surgically replaced by Castor Troy's, then go into prison to get information from Pollux. The problems begin when Castor wakes up, and takes on Archer's face while destroying all evidence of the switch.
The premise is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. It also is absolutely brilliant, and incredibly subversive. Hollywood film-making is built around the idea of the star, around the idea that the audience is always and automatically on the side of the star. It's not necessary to write an interesting character for Arnold Schwarzenegger, because the people in the audience aren't expected to be rooting for the character. They're rooting for Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor, the star.
FACE/OFF, ridiculous though its premise might be, demands the creation of compelling characters. For the first forty minutes, John Travolta plays Sean Archer, the tormented hero who has the audience's sympathy. Then comes the switch, and suddenly Nicolas Cage is playing Sean Archer. The only way viewers can transfer their allegiance is if they spent the first forty minutes rooting for Sean Archer, not John Travolta.
To make FACE/OFF work, director John Woo had to hand Mike Webb and Michael Colleary's sharp script to a couple of movie stars who could act, who could transcend persona for the demands of a dual role. Both Travolta and Cage are in fine form in FACE/OFF, tearing up scenery with eye-popping relish when playing Castor or seething with intensity as Archer. Of the two, Cage has the greater challenge, and pulls off the more impressive transformation. His Castor Troy is flamboyant, lusty and brutal, the perfect action villain; his Sean Archer faces the agony of becoming the man who ruined his life. Travolta, meanwhile, proves that an action film with thematic depth can still be a whole lot of fun, riffing on Cage's manic acting style and offering self-deprecating observations about his own "ridiculous chin." Woo delivers the kind of surging action summer movie-goers have come to expect, while adding touches they probably don't expect: evocative musical interludes, confident pacing and -- wonder of wonders -- an actual script.
FACE/OFF only really loses its way late in the film, when an apparently climactic showdown between Archer and Troy in a church instead turns into a speedboat chase chock-a-block with explosions. Woo has always loved his action on a grand scale -- grand opera, actually -- but the final ten minutes of FACE/OFF are just a bit much, especially at the tail end of 135 minutes of running time. Perhaps Woo, who built a loyal following by filling his Hong Kong action films with stories of guilt, family ties and redemption, was so excited to be making this kind of film in America that he just didn't want it to end. He certainly pulls of a neat trick in FACE/OFF, investing a conventional genre with unconventional resonance. He also challenges the star system of 1990s Hollywood with the revolutionary notion that an audience can invest itself emotionally in the characters in the story, not just the names above the title.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 about faces: 8.
Visit Scott Renshaw's MoviePage http://www-leland.stanford.edu/~srenshaw Subscribe to receive reviews directly via email
"'Elitist' [is] a word _meaningless_ in a profession that tries to seek
out and spotlight the best. 'Elite' is from the Old French root eslire,
to choose, and choosing is what a critic does for a living. Calling a
critic 'elitist' is like calling an accountant 'mathist.'"
--Richard Von Busack
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews