Face off role swap wife swap (Face/Off (DVD))

Member Name: bruffyboy

Product:	Face/Off (DVD)
Date:	13/11/09 (2 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: different

Disadvantages: hard to follow

Here's a clever concept for a film: a police officer has a face transplant with a major criminal in order to infiltrate his organisation - simple! This is an excellent and imaginative crime thriller starring the equally brilliant Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.

The premise of this film is very clever, because it requires no special effects (each actor simply becomes the other character half-way through) yet it does make it somehow believable, and you can't help but be drawn into the plot and believe it.

The story is actually fairly unpredictable and intelligent, and I liked that; there's an element of 'I guess this will happen', but you are more often than not wrong.

Travolta and Cage do a brilliant job, each oozing sheer coolness. Travolta gets better and better as a bad guy, a role he did brilliantly in in the recent Taking of Pelham 123. Likewise, Cage is your typical nice guy, and plays that role well.

At over 2 hours this is a long old film but it kept me interested the whole way through by showcasing great acting and an imaginative plot.

The only criticism is that it occasionally gets a bit tough to work out who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, since both swap roles half-way through. You need your thinking cap on to keep up.

All in all an excellent film and one that, despite being over ten years old, is still totally relevant to today's film industry.

Summary: do it