Face/Off A Movie Review	MPAA Rated - R It's 2:18 Long A Review by Stu Gotz

Here's the short poop of it all - Cage plays Castor Troy, a terrorist without a conscience but with loads of style. Travolta is Special FBI Agent Sean Archer with a vendetta against Troy. You see Troy inadvertently killed Archer's son while trying to assassinate Archer. Eventually Archer catches Troy, but his problems aren't over because Troy has planted a devastating bomb "of Biblical proportions" in the city somewhere. So, in order to sniff out the bomb's location, Archer has Troy's face surgically implanted onto his. Yeah sure. Anyway. . . Archer as Troy goes undercover and actually does get the bomb's location. Unfortunately for Archer, Troy awakens from a coma and takes Archer's face, clothes, job, and wife. Well. . . As you would expect there after follows a lot of chasing, fighting, and dying. In the end Troy is dead, the world is safe, and Archer has his face back. Yea!!!

OK. That quick summary does not do the movie's great action scenes and dry dialog acting justice. So what was some of that great action? This movie has by far the best boat chase scene I've ever seen. Were talking high speed Scarab's jetting around commercial traffic, flipping over, fighting on deck, water skiing in normal shoes, and crashing & burning. OK. In the real world totally unbelievable, but this is the movies baby and that scene was great! Oh yeah, what exactly what was a chain doing on a boat? Anyway, then there was a great shoot out scene that kills a bunch of agents, lots of bad guys, and in the end totally destroys a deluxe loft. What a waste. You want to talk about a waste? The gorgeously sultry Gina Gershon plays Troy's on again/off again girlfriend Sasha.  Sasha dies in the best Mexican Standoff scene I've ever seen. Me, I've always thought Tarantino did it best but Mike Werb and Michael Colleary's writing, combined with John Woo's directing might have taught the master a lesson.

Aside from the great action and dry dialogue the movie had a great look to it. I think you can call that great cinematography and the guy responsible for it was Oliver Wood. Seriously, Oli did a great job with his use of angles, wide shots, crops, pull outs, and slow-mo's (sounds like me having sex). I doubt that he'll get an Oscar for his work in this movie but it wouldn't surprise me if he, the actors, or the stunt coordinator get one of those MTV Movie Award things (aren't those cooler than the Academy anyway?).

Was there anything I didn't like about the movie? Actually a lot. First off, all of this would never happen, but hey this is a movie so let's just forget about that. Next, Joan Allen, who plays Eve Archer (Sean Archer's wife) - Nope, didn't like her - no chemistry - 'nuff said. And worst of all, Gina (Sasha) dies?!? Total bummer for me. I wanted more Gina, think she should have gotten more screen time, and I don't care if it didn't do anything for the plot of the movie. But hey, I'd pay to watch her read the yellow pages while dressed as Barney sitting on a folding chair in the dark.

Seriously though, I, Stu Gotz, whole-heartedly recommend "Face/Off"' to you, the general public, and I think it deserves 4 out of 5 stars!

'nuf said.