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The FBI's Sean Archer (Travolta) catches super-terrorist Castor Troy (Cage) in a violent arrest that results in an injured and unconscious Troy hospitalised with his bomb still ticking away in downtown LA.
Using pioneering surgical techniques, doctors remove Troy's face and graft it onto Archer, effectively giving him a living mask of the terrorist's face. Archer, masquerading as Troy, then attempts to discover the location of the bomb. But when the real Troy wakes up and discovers his grisly condition, he forces doctors to graft Archer's preserved face onto his head. With his identity now swapped, Troy-as-Archer sets about ruining Archer-as-Troy's life and perpetrating all kinds of evil mayhem in his good-guy guise.
It's a fascinating film in so many ways. For example, both Travolta and Cage invest their dual roles with physical subtleties that reflect the other actor's character. John Woo's smart direction makes you really care for the good Sean Archer trapped in the bad Castor Troy. Added to this is a plot that is strikingly imaginative, preposterous, and yet strangely convincing - the actual mechanics of the identity swap have a superficial credibility built on convenient, simplistic explanations. But the film succeeds in overcoming its implausibilities because director Woo offers such a tantalising package. He seems to be saying "accept this and I'll give you one hell of a ride."
And you certainly get that. Woo's action sequences (and there are many) are just beautiful, the highlight being a frenetic, slow-motion shoot-out as "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" plays on the soundtrack - "The Wizard of Oz" will never be the same again. It's a better film than Woo's "Mission: Impossible 2" because "Face/Off" belongs more to Woo than its stars. One can't help but think what "M:I2" would have been like had it been less Cruise and more Woo.
"Face/Off" is on 91Èȱ¬1, Friday 29th December 2000, at 9.10pm.
