For some time now, various Nicholas Cage films have been in my queue to watch. With him being in the news with his latest film, which looks pretty awesome (Nicholas Cage starring as Nicholas Cage!), I decided to check a couple out.
Looking back, it's kind of mind blowing that Con Air and Face/Off, two action film classics from the 90s, were released in the same year. In fact, from what I read, they were released with weeks of each other. At times, they were filming simultaneously and they had to work around Cage's schedule to accommodate them both.
Cage was having a pretty good time of it right then. Around that same time, The Rock and National Treasure were also released. He was king of the action stars there for a bit.
How do the films stack up? First of all, do I even have to tell anyone the plot of either? The films are about as high concept as a film can be. In Con Air, Nicholas Cage plays a recently paroled prisoner that has the unfortunate luck of boarding a flight that has been taken over by convicts. In Face/Off, an FBI agent, desperate to foil a terrorist attack, receives the terrorist's face in a transplant (?!) to go deep undercover to foil it. Meanwhile, the aforementioned terrorist manages to get hold of the FBI agent's face and has it transplanted on him (??!!). The two then, um, face off.
Welcome to 90s action films!
Well, the critical consensus is that Face/Off is the better work. Directed by John Woo, it's full of his directorial flourishes. The action shots are beautifully, stylistically shot. The settings, including a prison where the prisoners traipse around in magnetized boots, are elaborate. Explosions and gun fights are choreographed into something approaching ballet.
The two major stars, Cage and John Travolta, engage in a scenery chewing contest of epic proportions. Just imagine the possibilities of Travolta imitating Cage mannerisms and vice versa. If anything, Cage has the tougher role to play. Previously the flamboyant terrorist, with the face swap, he now has to be the angst ridden family man FBI agent. He has to seriously dampen down his performance. On the other hand, Travolta, in the second half of the film, gets to open up and play the mad man.
For an action film, it brings up interesting questions about identity. An interesting case can be made that both the FBI agent and the terrorist become better men after the face swap. The FBI agent loosens up a bit and becomes a more interesting husband / father. The terrorist becomes more responsible and closer to his own girl friend. Is there a message here that men need to have both good and bad in them?
The FBI agent's (Travolta) young son was earlier shot and killed by the terrorist (Cage), so there is a deep thread of vengeance running through the film as well. If anything, this, IMO, brings the film down a notch. This a 90s action film after all. Do we really want child murder to be a central plot point driving the film? It seems a bit heavy for the genre.
It goes without saying that plot holes are gigantic here. The transplanted FBI agent has apparently satisfying sex with his previously repressed wife. Did the scientists also do a penis transplant? The wife really couldn't tell that she was with a different man? A big plot point is that all people that know about the FBI agent's face transplant have been killed, so the FBI agent has no way of proving who he is. Did they also transplant fingerprints? The film was released in 1997. This is after the OJ trial, so DNA was definitely a thing then. It just seems like this could have been easily discovered.
I found it interesting that the face transplant scene is pretty much a direct homage to the 1960 French film, Eyes Without a Face (which I wrote about here). Granted the budget for Face/Off is much higher, so it appears much more high tech, but effectively, it's the exact same process.
So, the verdict is that, although I found the film enjoyable, if for no reason other than watching Travolta and Cage, both at their primes, together in a insane action film, it wasn't quite as awesome as it could have been.
Con Air, on the other hand, is all of that and more. Dare I say it, but I think Con Air might just be the quintessential 90s action film (please note, Die Hard was released in 1988).
Don't believe me? Check out the cast. Nicholas Cage as Cameron Po, the paroled convict with a heart of gold. John Malkovich as Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, the sociopathic mastermind of the plan. Ving Rhames, as Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones, the black militant. Steve Buscemi as Garland "The Marietta Mangler (?!)" Greene, the flight's serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Danny Trejo as John "Johnny 23" Baca, a sadistic serial rapist. John Cusack as the hard-charging US Marshal Vince Larkin. Last but certainly not least, we have an early appearance for Dave Chappelle as Joe "Pinball" Parker, a low level criminal kept around for primarily comedic effect.
That is quite the cast! And they all get their moments to reach out, grab hold, and start chewing any scenery that comes their way. None of these moments are wasted.
As with Face/Off, the plot is nonsense. There's a drug cartel leader that is apparently financing the operation but has plans to betray the convicts. It does not end well with him. Po has many opportunities to leave the plane and actually get back with his wife and kid, but, valuing his friendship with a diabetic convict over his family, he continues to still stay on the plane. At one point Po writes a message to Larkin on the chest of a dead body, throws the body off the plane, and sure enough, the message gets right to Larkin.
In the climatic scene, although having many opportunities to shoot down the plane in the greater interest of safety, instead they let the plane crash land in the middle of the Las Vegas strip, causing untold deaths and damage, not least of which is the fact that The Marietta Mangler, who we find out, even if he is a mad dog murderer, is kind of OK because he has a dry sense of humor, gets away clean to continue his murder spree.
In short, it is glorious madness and chaos. It's a violent, comic graphic novel come to life. This is peak Jerry Bruckheimer. You can't get any better than that.
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