Before there was the visual technology that has taken over the films turning them into a CGI and visual effects festival, everything was done through make-up, doubles and the use of realistic elements that allowed action scenes to be enhanced through primitive realism; and personally that is something I loved about ancient cinema, especially in action movies that now seem to have lost that spark that trapped us in super simple plots through fabulous recreations and montages. In fact, one of the movies that I most fondly remember is Face/Off; a body changing movie that used simple elements and incredible performances of those involved to create a whole changing and entertaining atmosphere.
Face/Off is a film that takes place under an atmosphere of suspense created from the decision of a policeman to infiltrate a criminal organization posing as the leader of that organization, all through a "revolutionary" surgery that allows him to adopt the face of the leader of the criminal gang, something that as you can imagine ends up derailing and complicating the whole plot and investigation they want to carry out. What is really interesting and super entertaining about this film is to see how the investigation changes not only the working life of the policeman involved, but also his personal life when the criminal leader from whom he removed the faces to do all this strategy of entering the band turns out to be alive, an extremely dangerous man who besides being reborn from the ashes of death uses the same strategy of the policeman and decides to change his face, and guess which one he chooses, yes, the policeman face.
Changes of faces, personality and bad decisions are the main ingredients of an action movie that unleashes incredible scenes of action and conspiracy, because we see the bad guy of the story adopt the face and the life of the good guy and vice versa, something that makes the whole movie a total mess because then we will have a super-powerful criminal gradually taken over the police to clandestinely control their criminal empire, while the police using the criminal resources at him disposal to escape from prison and get his live back, something far from simple if we take into account the fantastic work that the criminal with the face of the policeman does when pretending to be who he is not.
The plot is fantastic because we see great adrenaline-filled moments where both sides (good and bad) run around trying to capture each other, while at the same time we see super intense situations of the criminal embedding his criminal tentacles into the police family and forcing everyone to do their will. Another thing I liked about this film is that it lets us explore the side of criminals through the vision of a policeman who despite knowing that those he is living with are criminals, understands them and connects with them, realizing that they are also people who have been used and manipulated by a man willing to do everything to win.
The film has everything, a lot of action, adrenaline and above all a lot of suspense around the change of face from two enemies to death, two men who take this power struggle to a personal territory where the struggle of thoughts and resentment is what gives meaning to everything. This beyond being an action movie, is not a typical or superficial film, here the performances of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage are something very outstanding because they both adopt two very different roles but they manage to dominate perfectly through a change of personality that is evident at first sight, all this role-playing that both actors are forced to do is great, because they really get us to differentiate their personalities when they are changed. In short, one of my favorite action movies, a movie that without using digital effects achieved a magnificent result.
