FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Face/Off

Since the death of his son, FBI agent Sean Archer has been trying to capture the man responsible - terrorist Castor Troy. Sean finally gets a breakthrough when he corners Castor at a local airport. In the process of trying to arrest Castor, Sean finds out there's a bomb in L.A., but then the plane Castor's on crashes, and as a result he gets put into a coma. In order to find out where the bomb is before time runs out, Sean Archer undergoes an unusual surgery to physically become Castor Troy in order to entice Castor's brother to reveal the location of the bomb. Complications arise when the real Castor Troy wakes up from his coma and undergoes his own surgery to physically become Sean Archer, and so begins a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse.

I've seen a lot of movies with outrageous plot lines, but I think it's safe to say I've not seen very many like Face/Off. It's basically the epitome of mid-to-late '90's action cheese - but in a great way. When I heard what the story was, and that Nicolas Cage and John Travolta were the leads, I was hoping for some Nicolas Cage "NOT THE BEES!" moments. I was not disappointed in that regards. Cage is wild, hilarious, and a heck of a lot of fun as Castor Troy. John Travolta as Sean Archer is a bit more subdued, but is no less interesting. I loved watching each of them try to play as each other's characters. I do wish Travolta, when undercover as Castor, had gone a bit crazier in his performance, but even with what we got it was still great.

If you want realistic action and events, then Face/Off really isn't the movie for you. *Slight spoilers* early in the movie we see that there is 236 hours left until the bomb explodes, but then after the initial surgery the clock shows 216 hours. There's no way someone could realistically recover from such a major surgery in that short of a time. Personally, I can forgive the outrageousness of the plot, and ultimately the movie as a whole, because it's such a fun movie.

I don't know why it's taken me this long to finally see it, but I'm glad I did.