FACE OFF

FILM REVIEW

Country / Year: U.S.A. 1997

Genre: Action

Director: John Woo

Writing credits: Mike Werb, Mike Colleary

Cast: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola, Gina Gershon,

Dominique Swain, Nick Cassavetes, Harve Presnell, Colm Feore, Margaret

Choo.

Music: John Powell

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

“I’d like to take his face off, eyes, nose, skin, it’s coming on” This is what Agent Archer would say after changing his face from his body to another body by surgery.

The film is directed by John Woo who is known and appreciated for his unique stylistic approach to violence and bloodshed, and creates a kinetic ballet of bullets and explosions that can drive your adrenaline level through the roof. He also directed other action films such us Broken Arrow (1996),Windtalkers (2002) or Paycheck (2004). The writers are Mike Werb who also wrote The Mask (1994) and Mike Colleary (Tomb Rider 2001) . The main actors are John Travolta who played films like Saturday Night Fever in 1977 which became him famous, Grease in 1978, Look Who’s Talking in 1989, Swordfish in 2001 and much more films (57 in total) and Nicolas Cage who played also a lot of films like Captain Corelli’s Mandolin in 2001 or Conair in 1997 as the most importants in his filmography career.

Plot: The FBI’s Agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) catches terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage), who killed Sean’s son, in a violent arrest where Troy results injured and hospitalised with his bomb still ticking away in Los Angeles. Using the latest and the greatest surgical techniques, doctors remove Troy’s face and graft it onto Archer, effectively giving him a living mask of the terrorist’s face. Agent Archer, masquerading as Troy, attempts to discover the location of the bomb. But when the real Troy wakes up from his comma and discovers his condition, (without his face) he forces doctors to graft Archer’s preserved face onto his head. With his identity now changed, Troy (as Archer) wants to ruin Archer’s (as Troy) life and perpetrating all kinds of evil chaos in his good-guy role.

The type of language used in this film is colloquial American English. The vocabulary is easy to understand despite of the slang used in some speech. Although sometimes is hard to understand some idioms or expressions.

In my opinion, the film is fantastic and fascinating in so many ways. First of all, for example, both actors Travolta and Cage invest their dual roles that reflect the other actor’s character: the good and the evil person. About the plot, I have to say that is strikingly and amazingly imaginative and convincing. The action sequences are very good and very intensives, although the last persecution can be a bit boring unless you feel the action through your veins. Nevertheless, the rest of the film is quite good. The sound track is catchy and adapted on each scene. Even the sound effects are very good as well. The special effects are perfectly chilling in this kind of film, and the director must have invested a lot of money. The camera movements and angles are also quite perfect to try to show all the feelings that the director wants to communicate. You could realise about this in a scene that takes place inside a church.

I hope you like it if you decide to see the film.

By Oscar Sandoval Fernandez 5^th F