By Geno McGahee
Nicolas Cage is one of the best forces film has ever seen. His overacting is something that legends are made of. In 1997, one of the best ideas was realized when Cage was teamed up with another one of the best over-actors of our time, John Travolta, in a film that is so absurd and strange called “FACE/OFF.”
Sean Archer (Travolta) is a detective in a war with a terrorist, Castor Troy (Cage). As the two battle, a gunshot from Troy goes through Archer and into his son, killing him. Archer is now possessed, stopping at nothing to get the man that killed his son, but it’s at the expense of his family. His wife, Eve (Joan Allen), has grown distant and his daughter, Jamie (Dominique Swain), wants nothing to do with him.
For the record, I am on Team Travolta. I don’t care how many masseuses he groped. They rub you for hours and bitch the moment you rub back? I don’t support hypocrites like that and Travolta was only asking for a happy ending. I’m glad that bullshit went away and he can refocus on his acting career.
After a long battle, the mission is complete and Troy is dead, or so they thought. Unfortunately, Troy’s brother, Pollux (Alessandro Nivola), has set up a huge bomb and Archer needs to find out where it is and nobody is talking. So the most reasonable thing to do it to have your face removed and put the face of the dead Troy on your face, go to prison, and impersonate him to get Pollux to give up where the bomb is. Hey, I told you this movie was absurd.
Archer now looks just like Troy and is in prison and trying to get the information and does, but Pollux figures it out. In the meantime, the real Troy comes out of a coma and captures the plastic surgeon and is now assuming the identity of Archer. This film is not based on actual events, if you’re curious.
Travolta doing his best Cage impressions is amazing. He is trying to out-Cage, Cage, but that’s not an easy task, but they got the right guy. Troy loves his new identity and is enjoying the attention as he’s getting as Archer and manipulates situation after situation to make himself a big hero, even getting a call from the President. I began to realize something as I watched this too. There’s not enough movies with Cage and Travolta together. I think this is the one. It might be time for another.
Both Troy and Archer adjust to their new identities and make the best of it. Archer (as Troy) escapes prison after they tried shock treatment on him, for some reason, and is now on the hunt. The prison that Archer was sent to was so strange. They used magnetic shoes to keep the inmates stuck to the floor and then used electricity on them if they misbehaved, but, on the good side, there wasn’t that much prison rape that I noticed. It is probably hard to pump some guy in the ass while being magnetically stuck to the floor.
We get a lot of showdowns between the two, leading to a showdown of epic proportions that had me laughing out loud. The death scene for Travolta was so good but Cage’s reaction while he screams “DIE” was just as enjoyable.
FACE/OFF is glorious. I love Travolta and Cage. They are so absurd and over the top in this. They embraced it. They knew that the audience wanted them to overact as much as possible and they fucking delivered. FACE/OFF has an absurd plot but you cannot go wrong with Travolta and Cage and I loved this movie so much that I’m going to become a masseuse and catch up with Travolta ASAP.
