FACE/OFF (JOHN WOO IS THE SLO MO KING!)

"OK, Plan B: Let's just kill each other"

What can be said about John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in their acting prime?  They completely sold this movie!  Yes, there's the typical (awesome) John Woo Slo Mo with excess fireworks, explosions, gunshots, bombs, etc... but unlike Paycheck (John Woo's failed attempt at making Ben Affleck look like an action star after bombing in Daredevil), all the extra special effects were not in vain because Cage & Travolta brought believability to their characters. 

Of course this looks cool, it's got John Woo explosions in it!

In this cult classic, we have Castor Troy (villain Nic Cage) who's being hunted by agent Sean Archer (good guy Travolta) after Troy accidentally kills Archer's son whilst trying to assassinate Archer.  Archer's life is consumed with Troy so much that he knows Troy's every movie, habit, personality traits, etc... In order to get info on a bomb Troy set to blow, Archer has to go undercover to squeeze the location of it out of Castor's paranoid little brother who's in jail.  The only way to do this is to cut the face off Troy, slap it on Archer, perform surgeries to make Archer's body look like Troy's, and send him in.  Then, BAM!  We now have good guy Nic Cage!

In the process, bad guy Nic Cage wakes up from his coma (an unfortunate side effect of being hit on the head really hard), and decides to turn into bad guy Travolta for some bullets, bombs and mayhem!

I found myself actually believing that Cage's character was actually Travolta's trapped in his body and vice versa.  I love how both Nic & John were able to be extremely versatile and convincing in playing the good and bad guys in one movie. 



Let's not fool ourselves though...this is NOT a thinking man's movie.  This is a man's man movie.  You're not gonna get action and mental challenge like Inception, but you ARE gonna get lots and LOTS of useless (but very cool) slo mo diving whilst shooting a million bullets and missing every shot! 








If you know John Woo, then you know this is his bag baby!  You'll be hard pressed to find a director who knows how to give you epic shoot 'em up movies better than Mr Woo (and PLEASE don't waste your time on the movie Shoot 'Em Up.  If it ain't John Woo, it ain't a shoot 'em up film!)










My rating:

4.402757027 out of 5 stars

For an action fix with some good acting thrown in, watch John Woo's: Face/Off!!


Hasta La Vista, Baby

Jay