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Face/Off (1997)

Rate: 6
Viewed: 5/25

Faceoff
5/25: Showing shades of a vastly superior film called Dip huet seung hung by John Woo, Face/Off can be difficult to judge.

On one hand, there's the terrific acting by John Travolta and Nicolas Cage who are believable as themselves and each other. They do everything as possible to elevate the film and have funny one-liners while mocking their own faces such as "Well, think about me. This nose. This hair. This ridiculous chin" and "When this is over, I want you to take this face and burn it."

Yet there's the awful bombastic style that John Woo is eternally infamous for. I was thinking of '8' until the final thirty minutes that ruined the movie and ultimately the leading actors' performances. Sean Archer and Castor Troy keep shooting and missing each other constantly while getting everybody else with near 100% accuracy. How can that be?

Instead, the director should've let the acting take over the film. I wouldn't have cared if there was no action. The story is so good that it's more than enough although everything has been 100% implausible. Imagine the cutting involved to take off two faces and switch them without regard to their blood types. They even called the procedure reversible! Sometimes, there are cheesy moments like Sean Archer doing the hand-to-the-face thing and the white doves walking and flying around in the church.

All in all, if not for John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, Face/Off would've died at the box office, finishing John Woo for good in the United States earlier than expected.