`Face/Off' Top-Notch And Over The Top

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XX 1/2 "Face/Off," with John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon. Directed by John Woo, from a screenplay by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary. Alderwood, Auburn Cinema 17, Crossroads, East Valley 13, Everett Mall 4-10, Factoria, Gateway, Issaquah 9, Kent 6, Kirkland Parkplace, Meridian 16, Metro, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Puget Park drive-in, Puyallup 6, Southcenter, Valley drive-in. 140 minutes. "R" - Restricted for profanity, violence, adult situations.

There are a lot of ways to go over the top, and John Woo seems to have managed every one of them for his new film, "Face/Off."

Woo's principal actors, Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, go over the top in switching roles as villain and hero. Woo's stunts, chases and standoffs are over the top in a way that intelligently mocks and embraces the genre. And most of all, the concept of "Face/Off" is so durn over the top that it vaults over the bar, lands on its feet and kisses a nearby photographer.

After loathsome international terrorist Castor Troy (Cage) shoots federal agent Sean Archer (Travolta) and accidentally kills Archer's son, the two begin a vendetta against each other. Six years later, Castor and his brother Pollux (is this the week for Greek mythology or what?) plant a nerve-gas bomb in the Los Angeles Convention Center and plan to ransom the city unless itpays up.

After a brutal confrontation with the feds, Castor is knocked into a coma and Pollux sent to a maximum-security prison.

Agent Archer finds out about the existence of the bomb, but not its whereabouts. To convince the idiot savant Pollux to divulge where the bomb is, Archer undergoes a surgery wherein the face of the comatose Castor Troy is removed and switched with his own. He is then sent to prison as Castor Troy to try to ascertain the bomb's location from his "brother."

Dynamite second half

Because I believe that the second half of this movie may be one of the best second acts of any film in the last 10 years, I'm not going any further with the storyline. To use the words of Sean Archer during this act, "The plot thickens."

What makes the second half of this movie so outstanding is the underlying ramifications of assuming the identity of another person. Unlike the incessant droppings of action/adventure dross such as "Con Air" or "The Rock," "Face/Off" has substance beneath its shoot-'em-up exterior. What "Face/Off" seems to say is that the outer life we create of father, policeman, crook, introvert, extrovert and, more important, how people expect us to act in those roles dictate what we are and how we behave just as much as our true selves.

Sean Archer enters Castor Troy's world and begins to act the way people would expect Castor Troy to act; but Archer begins to find no real defining line between himself and the killer he impersonates. During a prison fight, Archer bludgeons a fellow inmate and chants, "I am Castor Troy! I am Castor Troy!" He becomes like the real terrorist in ways that are at first imperceptible and later, to Archer's inner horror, agreeable to him.

Stars mesh well

Cage and Travolta perform a memorable duet in their roles. Woo remembers that movies can be about faces, and he embraces the mugs of his two stars. They, in turn, relish the demands of their roles, modulating each performance to the other's tempo. Each is given a chance at extreme histrionics and moments of sad grace, and each works the room accordingly.

I doubt that most viewers will respond favorably to "Face/Off." Woo comes at them with his booming, gargantuan style and cadence; it's clearly not a mainstream, commercial approach. And it's brutal stuff. Woo creates the kind of atmospheric violence of Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" or Paul Verhoeven's "RoboCop." People pop up like firing-range targets and become perforated just as quickly. Men fly through the air sideways as if that's the only way they can get their guns to fire.

Then there's that face-switching. The raison d'etre for the whole scenario is just so outlandish and gory that the operation scene is more likely to merit shrieks of incredulity as horror. "Why didn't they set this in the future?" you may ask yourself as they float Travolta's face in some liquid solution. Faces get peeled and scars healed with such alacrity and ease that it's easy to believe there's going to be a good franchise business in face-stripping someday.

The chase scenes at the end are classic John Woo, five steps above Steven Seagal, one step below Buster Keaton. Maintaining a straight face (no pun intended) for the closing superfluous boat chase is as difficult as when, in an earlier scene, Castor (with Sean Archer inside him, remember) tries to recap the plot to Archer's wife (played with class, as usual, by Joan Allen). But it's vital to remember you're actually laughing with John Woo, not at him.

When the smoke clears however, "Face/Off" remains a whole film. Its questions of identity, its vaunted stars, its memorable second act, and its maniacal drive make it hard to shake, and impossible to discount. Most of all, though, "Face/Off" is a full-blooded, movie-going experience. It's 100 percent movie.