Rating of
2/4
"Face/Off" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 01/27/12
An obsessive FBI agent goes undercover by switching identities with a comatose psychotic terrorist but when he reawakens and kills everyone who knows about it they find themselves leading each others lives. The idea of Face/Off had a lot of potential but instead of exploring the psychology involved, Woo decided to just have his slo-mo stars flip-flopping around with guns blazing while blowing the scenery up, and that's about it. In fact Face/Off can be seen as the prototype to the modern action film; but I don't mean that in a good way. It plays out EXACTLY like a Michael Bay film, with associated over the top but unexciting and generic action sequences, absurdly overblown and contrived melodrama and laughable sentimentality. As the film goes on the directorial gimmickry gets more and more intrusive as by the absurd finale including a ridiculous speedboat chase that's straight out of a bad 80s Bond film I'd become totally exasperated. There are some decent shoot outs and Travolta has some fun aping Nic Cage's appalling over-acting but as a whole its ludicrous Van Damme standard script and clod-hopping over-direction are examples of everything that's wrong with the modern blockbuster. At least it did it first, I suppose...
