The Most Ridiculous '90s Action Movie Is on Netflix

Legendary Hong Kong action director John Woo just released a new movie, Manhunt, which dropped on Netflix this week to mixed reviews and almost zero publicity. However, its release marks a good time to revisit another Woo movie that’s currently streaming on Netflix: the brilliantly insane 90s action flick Face/Off. Face/Off has all the quirks Woo is known for (slow-motion gun battles, soaring music, dramatic standoffs, and a whole lot of doves), but dialed it up to the max with two of America’s best bad actors: John Travolta and Nicolas Cage.

Face/Off, as its unsubtle name implies, is about taking people’s faces off, specifically John Travolta’s mopey FBI agent Sean Archer and Nicolas Cage’s deranged terrorist Castor Troy. Archer has spent years hunting Troy after the latter murdered his son while the boy was riding a carousel. Troy, for his part, has been walking around in a metallic red suit and hexagonal ruby sunglasses paying the bills as a freelance terrorist. When the FBI puts Castor Troy in a coma (sure), they learn he planted a bomb somewhere in Los Angeles, and his terrorist brother Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) isn’t talking. They go for the obvious solution: using advanced plastic surgery to slice off Troy’s face and sew it onto Archer’s so he can go to prison and trick Pollux into spilling the bomb beans.

However, as soon as Archer (now played by Nicolas Cage) is placed inside a maximum security prison, Troy wakes up from his coma. “Nothing like having your face cut off to disturb your sleep!” he explains. After getting Archer’s spare face attached to his bloody skull, Troy (now played by John Travolta) goes off to live his enemy’s life while Archer has to escape from prison and race to save his face.

Yes, the film is batshit bonkers, but in the best way. Unlike so many self-serious action movies today, Face/Off knows how to have fun. It’s a movie you have to go into expecting it to be bizarre and campy. Travolta and Cage clearly revel in playing unhinged versions of each other while delivering dialogue like: “You can’t give back what you’ve taken from me.” “OK, then plan B. Why don’t we just kill each other?” The supporting cast, including Gina Gershon, Joan Allen, and Nick Cassavetes, is great, and Nicolas Cage is… the most Nicolas Cage-y he’s ever been. (It’s strange to remember Cage was once an A-list action star, but Face/Off came out in the same two year period as Con Air and The Rock. The ’90s were a weird time.)

Above all, Face/Off features Woo’s brilliant eye for action. There’s a reason why when Quentin Tarantino was once asked if Woo knew how to direct action he snarkily replied “Yeah, and Michelangelo could paint a ceiling.” John Woo said that Face/Off was the first Hollywood film where he had full control, and you can see him letting loose as much as the actors. This is a movie featuring a dancing Travolta disarming a bomb, a child watching a machine gun battle while listening to “Over the Rainbow,” and a standoff featuring virtually every character in the movie. All in all, Face/Off might be the most ridiculous ’90s action film, but it is also one of the best.