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Title: Face/Off (1997)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| John Travolta | ... | Sean Archer | |
| Nicolas Cage | ... | Castor Troy | |
| Joan Allen | ... | Eve Archer | |
| Alessandro Nivola | ... | Pollux Troy | |
| Gina Gershon | ... | Sasha Hassler | |
| Dominique Swain | ... | Jamie Archer | |
| Nick Cassavetes | ... | Dietrich Hassler | |
| Harve Presnell | ... | Victor Lazarro | |
| Colm Feore | ... | Dr. Malcolm Walsh | |
| John Carroll Lynch | ... | Prison Guard Walton | |
| CCH Pounder | ... | Hollis Miller | |
| Robert Wisdom | ... | Tito Biondi | |
| Margaret Cho | ... | Wanda | |
| James Denton | ... | Buzz (as Jamie Denton) | |
| Matt Ross | ... | Loomis | |
Sean Archer, a very tough, rugged FBI Agent, is still grieving for his dead son Michael. Archer believes that his son's killer is his sworn enemy and a very powerful criminal, Castor Troy. One day, Archer has finally cornered Castor, however, their fight has knocked out Troy cold. As Archer finally breathes easy over the capture of his enemy, he finds out that Troy has planted a bomb that will destroy the entire city of Los Angeles and all of its inhabitants. Unfortunately the only other person who knows its location is Castor's brother Pollux, and he refuses to talk. The solution, a special operation doctor that can cut off people's faces, and can place a person's face onto another person. Archer undergoes one of those surgeries to talk to Pollux. However, Castor Troy somehow regains consciousness and now wants revenge on Archer for taking his face. Not only is Troy ruining Archer's mission, but his personal life as well. Archer must stop Troy again. This time, it's personal. Written by John Wiggins
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FACE/OFF
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)
Sound formats: Dolby Digital / DTS
This magnificent thriller represents director John Woo's triumphant return to the kind of hyperkinetic, emotionally charged film-making which made him such a hot property in the first place. Following the artistic bankruptcy of his first two Hollywood projects, this one is a marriage of high-octane movie-making and mind-twisting narrative complexities. It's also one of the few American action movies which manages to strike a balance between crowd-pleasing set-pieces and domestic interludes, and renders them equally important. John Travolta and Nicolas Cage are perfectly matched as hero/villain (and vice versa!), whilst heavyweight theatre actress Joan Allen provides the narrative with much of its dramatic backbone in the role of Travolta's wife (the scene in which she is first confronted with her husband in Cage's body is almost identical to a similar scene in Terence Fisher's FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED [1969]).
Technically, the film is a blast, and Woo stages the action highlights with a visual grace and dexterity that is often breathtaking to behold. The climactic speedboat battle is probably the finest set-piece of Woo's career to date, and the script is overflowing with visual and thematic ironies that underscore the action highlights. In fact, the production has arguably more dramatic resonance than any other Hollywood blockbuster of the 1990s, but the dictates of American commercialism mean that Woo is only able to skate over the emotional surface of his characters and their moral dilemmas. The two main protagonists are much too cold and heartless to fully engage the audience's sympathies, and there's nothing here that matches the scorching human drama of, say, BULLET IN THE HEAD (1990). But for all that, FACE/OFF dares to go deeper than your average Hollywood action picture. It's clever, witty and thrilling, and it manages to accomplish the difficult task of feeding the brain whilst entertaining the eye.