FACE/OFF

From the Asian action/adventure director of HARD TARGET and BROKEN ARROW, John Woo, comes a silly, far-fetched, ultra-violent, shoot-em-up, called FACE/OFF, starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage (also packing heat in CON AIR.) If the movies can make dinosaurs come back to life and lava flow down the streets of LA, then it is possible to surgically switch faces without scars, as demonstrated in this movie.

Nicolas Cage plays a villain named Castor, who in 1986 tried to kill FBI agent John (John Travolta) but accidentally killed John’s son instead. Today, John has a personal vendetta against Castor and wants to see him put away. At a violent confrontation at an airport, Castor is finally brought down, but not killed. He is put into a government run hospital. John’s wife Jamie (Joan Allen) is happy to have the ordeal over. She has hopes of John getting a desk job and seeing him come home every night.

John, however, is offered one more assignment. The FBI wants John to become Castor, whose incarceration is secret, so that John can infiltrate Castor’s team and bring his cohorts to justice. A secret government surgical team has come up with a process which will allow Castor’s face to be removed from his skull and placed on John’s face without any scarring. John, still sore over his son’s death, agrees to the surgery. With Castor’s face firmly in place, John’s face waits for him in a petri dish, next to the comatose body of Castor.

John as Castor is sent to prison and becomes very close to Castor’s gang, learning their plans for more crime. Back at the lab, Castor wakes up, realizes he doesn’t have a face, insists that the doctor’s give him John’s face and then burns up the doctor’s lab. Castor, as John, goes to John’s wife, has his way with her and works inside the FBI to bring it down. John as Castor, in prison, finds out about this atrocity, makes an escape, and fights Castor as John being careful to not injure his misplaced face.

A string of children’s movies such as BIG make fun of the premise of body switching. These movies worked because they were billed as comedies and used fantasy as their plot device. FACE/OFF doesn’t work because it , excuse the pun, keeps such a straight face about its premise. Furthermore, it assumes that modern science can allow such a implausibility to happen. (Even JURASSIC PARK and LOST WORLD knew that it was pure fabrication.)

Many unintentional laughs occurred during the face switching process. John admits that this is a crazy act which will alienate him from his family, but he shrugs his shoulders and says, “Let’s do it.” Movies can get away with great leaps of logic, but they shouldn’t broadcast these leaps. Also, John Travolta can’t stop pawing the faces of his family members, supposedly a sort of love-tap/affirming touch, but it looks awkward and unnatural.

Action fans will get their fill of guns, chases and near-death stunts. The gore and blood runs a little high also. Moral Americans will find this difficult, but the biggest outrage is when Nicholas Cage dresses up in a priest’s cloak and collar and goes to an attractive female choir singer and grabs her behind when she is singing the Hallelujah Chorus. On another occasion, John and Castor have a shoot-out during a funeral at a Catholic church. Castor even pretends to be crucified in one instance. Castor is a blasphemous villain. Compared to CON AIR, Cage’s other action picture this summer, CON AIR wins both for morality, with some pro-Christian elements, and for entertainment value. FACE/OFF loses face and may lose audience members in contrast to the other action picture offerings.