Everyone has a handful of films that they watched and loved again and again as they were growing up. The kind of films that remain engrained in your memory for the sheer fact that you must have watched them to the point that the ribbon on your VHS copy was close to catching fire. Then as you got older and formats changed these titles fell by the wayside. A forgotten relic of your childhood, filed in your memory banks along with POGS, Yo Yos and Pokemon Cards.
John Woo’s Face/Off was one of those films for me, part of a Nicholas Cage trilogy that I had on rotation about twelve years ago, along with The Rock and Con Air. So when it was given to me for Christmas I was very excited at the prospect of re-visiting this cornerstone of my youth, and seeing if it held up to the test of time.
The good news is, for the most part, it did. One thing I’m ashamed to admit though is that I never noticed just how fucking ridiculous the plot for this film was until now. Two men are able to swap identities through the magic of what seems to be about four surgical procedures and get back into action within about a day. Basically it seems that all it takes is the application of someone else’s face to your skull and you can become that person to the point of even fooling their family members.
Any quibbles regarding plausibility, although niggling, are quite petty because to dwell on them to much would be to miss the objective of the film entirely, which is basically to provide badass action. Something Woo does almost flawlessly. The action scenes in this film are as extended and extravagant as any other I can recall, blending stylish imagery, impressive stunts and effective camera work. More good news is they are so frequent that the two hour plus running time flies by, and I am turned back into that twelve year old boy, wanting to start the film all over again.
4/5
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