"Face/Off" (Blu-ray)

Synopsis

FBI Agent Sean Archer's (Travolta) son is killed by drug lord Castor Troy (Cage), and when Castor is captured, Sean takes his face so that he can infiltrate the rest of his gang when they think Troy is in prison.

Castor awakens in the surgical recovery room, and when he finds out what has happened to him, he takes Sean's face and goes home to Sean's home for revenge, and to find out what Sean is actually up to. In the meantime, he has to be a father to Sean's daughter, and this is ironic, because Sean has not been much of a father up to this point.

Sean has his hands full too, including taking care of a rather wild girlfriend as he tries to gather evidence in the drug ring.

Commentary

Face/Off, along with Broken Arrow, have established John Woo as an action director whose skills match those of any other director of this genre. I just wish he had done more of them.

One of the more interesting turns in the story is how Troy, with Archer's face, deals with the Archer daughter, Jamie (Swain). He sees her presumptious boyfriend trying to take advantage of her, tosses him through a window, and hands her a switchblade, telling her that if she dresses like a floozy, she will be treated like one, but in the meantime, use the knife to protect herself.

Similarly, he starts giving Archer's wife Eve (Allen) more attention than she was used to with the real husband. So, you know that in the end, Castor Troy will have fixed Sean Archer's family problems, regardless of how the drug war thing works out.

This particular action movie was nominated for an Academy Award.

Technical

Blu-ray is undeniably great stuff, and this movie was very entertaining even in SD resolution, so you can imagine how nice it looks in high definition. There is no high def soundtrack though, just conventional DD and DTS.

Extras

These include a director commentary, deleted scenes, making of, and other things.