Nicolas Cage, the man, the myth, the legend, the actor who’s been everything from a treasure hunter to a flaming-skull-sporting bounty hunter, is thrilling Pluto TV viewers with one of his most deranged and entertaining roles. Yes, we’re talking about Face/Off, the 1997 sci-fi action extravaganza directed by John Woo, where Cage and John Travolta quite literally swap faces.
Cage stars as freelance terrorist Castor Troy and Travolta as Sean Archer, a federal agent obsessed with bringing Troy to justice. After Troy is left comatose without revealing the location of his next deadly attack, Archer takes drastic measures, undergoing experimental face-transplant surgery to assume Troy’s identity. Posing as Troy in a secret high-security prison, Archer attempts to get info from Troy’s cronies.
When Troy wakes up from his coma, though, sh*t hits the fan as he forces the surgeons to swap his face with Archer’s, and then kills them, leaving no trace of the secret mission. With Archer now trapped in Troy’s body and Troy wreaking havoc while living as Archer, it becomes cat and mouse as Archer breaks out of prison, setting the stage for the explosive, signature action-packed mayhem that Woo is famous for. The film also stars Joan Allen, Gina Gershon, Alessandro Nivola, Dominique Swain, and Nick Cassavetes, Harve Presnell, and Margaret Cho.
Last year, Cage said in an interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub that he was keen to reprise his role in a sequel, which is currently in development with director Adam Wingard.
“I think
Face/Off
is a sequel that lends itself to a lot of twists and turns and unpredictability. It’s almost like if you factor in the idea of offspring and Castor and Sean having children and these children grow up, then it becomes like three-dimensional chess, and then it’s not just the two, John Travolta and myself, it’s four of us ping-ponging and going at different levels, and it becomes even more complex. I think there’s a lot of fertile ground there.”
Is ‘Face/Off’ Worth Seeing?
Oh, it’s glorious. With a 92% positive and certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, critics agree. In a retrospective piece, Collider’s Harrison Chute claimed the film “obliterates the line between good and bad“.
Face/Off
trades suspense for spectacle, but also works as a thoughtful – not brainy – action movie. Are the performances good? Technically, they’re overacted. So the question, then, is if they’re the
right
performances, if they’re entertaining. That’s all that really matters, and the answer is, hell yes.
Face/Off is streaming now on Pluto.
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