" face/off " is the story of sean archer ( john travolta ) , a member of an elite secret fbi team attempting to hunt down and catch castor troy ( nicholas cage ) , one really vile and over the top terrorist ( of course , who isn't in today's action movies ) . in the opening of the movie we watch as sean gets nailed from castor troy with a sniper's bullet . unfortunately , while sean barely survives the attack , his son doesn't , and thus sets sean on a life-long pursuit after the evil castor . normal action movie right ? wrong . flashy action director john woo ( somewhat unsuccessfully ) throws the audience a curveball . to better infiltrate castor's crime syndicate , mainly in attempt to stop a bomb going off in the middle of la , sean uses " modern day technology " . what technology you ask ? it's not just rubber noses : sean literally exchanges his own face with the face of castor ( who at this point has been brought into justice and is resting peacefully in a coma ) . sound moderately corny ? it is , and no matter how many special effects john woo brings into the mix , the switch still seems awkward to me . while this is in some ways a pitfall of the movie , fortunately it turns around to make the movie more enjoyable . as suspected , castor gets out of the coma , and takes the original face of sean archer . thus for the majority of the movie , you have literal role reversals , sean appears to be castor , and vice versa . more importantly however , the audience gets to see john travolta acting like the wild nicholas cage we've come to love , and cage play the more straight-shooting travolta . you can see the actors are having a good time in their roles , and the actors play wonderfully off each other . now the real question : how's the action ? fortunately , it's the other major strength of the movie , with incredibly original sequences , from speed boats to planes on runways . john woo is a master at this art , and succeeds in creating exciting and invigorating shoot outs . on that same note however , i was disappointed in that what i believed to be the best action sequence - where sean is attempting to intercept castor at the airport - is the first sequence of the movie ! consequently , while the movie opened with a bang , i was a little let down by the remaining action sequences . and on a minor point , while most of the slow motion touches are nice , mr . woo seems to be a little too obsessed with this movie making quality . all in all , if you allow yourself to be wrapped up in face/off's vortex , you may look back at a few parts ( the face swapping scene comes instantly to my mind ) with skepticism , but you'll certainly enjoy the two hour ride . 
