Amazon.com essential video: At his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo's first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise--hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fiction plastic surgery--and creates a double-barreled revenge film driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage's tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist's reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers clichés to a conflict of near-mythic levels. --Sean Axmaker
Amazon.com: At his best, director John Woo turns action movies into ballets of blood and bullets grounded in character drama. Face/Off marks Woo's first American film to reach the pitched level of his best Hong Kong work (Hard-Boiled). He takes a patently absurd premise--hero and villain exchange identities by literally swapping faces in science-fiction plastic surgery--and creates a double-barreled revenge film driven by the split psyches of its newly redefined characters. FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) must play the villain to move through the underworld while psychotic terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) becomes a perversely paternal family man while using every tool at his disposal to destroy his nemesis. Travolta vamps Cage's tics and flamboyant excess with the grace of a dancer after his transformation from cop to criminal, while Cage plays the sullen, bottled-up agent excruciatingly trapped behind the face of the man who killed his son. His attempts to live up to the terrorist's reputation become cathartic explosions of violence that both thrill and terrify him. This is merely icing on the cake for action fans, the dramatic backbone for some of the most visceral action thrills ever. Woo fills the screen with one show-stopping set piece after another, bringing a poetic grace to the action freakout with sweeping camerawork and sophisticated editing. This marriage of melodrama and mayhem ups the ante from cops-and-robbers clichés to a conflict of near-mythic levels. --Sean Axmaker
Face off in HD Special collectors edition 2 disc I saw this movie when it was first released in 97 and This is a Special Edition two disc HD DVD and a Great movie & sound & acting and now have the 3 in standard & HD & Blu Ray so if you like action movies as much as I do four and a half out of five Recommended .
fantastic love this movie and again one i have not seen for a while, i liked the story and thought it was well done, and the blu-ray copy just blew me out the window very nicley done, on the whole enjoyed this movie more than some of the movies that have come out latley.
Great Job Face/off is one of my favourites and i was looking forward for Months to watch it in HD format. I must admit they did a fantastic job transferring this classic to HD ... if you like this movie, you will LOVE it in Blu-ray.
Great Transfer This was a excellent HD Transfer on the HD-DVD with plenty of features. Should be just as good (if not better) on Blu-Ray. The only downside is that the DTS track was in 6.1 ES, which isn't supported by any HD-DVD players and very few Blu-Ray players support this track (this matters if you are using PCM sound through HDMI). Most Blu-Ray players make the jump from DTS Core Audio to HD High Resolution and HD Master Audio with nothing in between. Don't be discouraged though, cause it still sounds great down-mixed to 5.1. Highly recommend switching from the DVD version to this HD version. The quality is great and a definite improvement over the DVD releases.
Forget politics -- this is a great film to have! While I don't think this is a five star movie (probably a solid three or four) something has to be done to balance out the idiots who are posting lower ratings for this excellent film solely based on their dislike of Paramount (who has finally come over to blu like everyone else).
So -- if you want this film, buy it on BD because it is available (it's actually already in stores but Amazon has a weird idea not to make it available until June 3). It's a very good film, terrific action, and the pic quality and sound should be excellent (read the reviews of it on regular DVD to get a better idea).
Anything Goes Trivia
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