No, this is what I call a Nicholas Cage movie! He gets two roles for the price of one; Castor Troy the nutso terrorist and loyal brother. And failing family man/elite FBI agent Sean Archer. Of course, this being the movie where he gets to swap faces/characters, he does so with, the nearly...but not quite so insane, John Travolta.Given that director John Woo has a taste for the over-theatrical, it's no wonder both boys go for it. And great they are too.
Woo himself finally nails a story and a style the perfectly combines a relatively serious Hollywood thriller with that of his ultra-stylised, mythical shoot-'em-ups.
On a visual level, he's reigned in the photography, presenting something less colourful and over the top. The script is less bullshit too, choosing to explore the dramatics of both the main protagonists, along with the repercussions of their colleagues, friends and family. For a high concept sci-fi action film, it really doesn't have to do this (just look at TimeCop and The Running Man) but it's a better, richer movie for doing so.
On the other hand, Woo embraces the cinematic techniques to the maximum, that he had shunned in Broken Arrow. Like Guillermo Del Toro did before (with Hellboy II), he realised, in order to fully succeed, he had to stop sanitising his work for the US studio system and show-off what made him a director of worth. So, along with the slow-mo comes, over lapping sound and dialogue, montage and unconventional editing, high concept iconic shots and those bloody huge sparks that fly off of everything when a stray bullet hits.
The action set pieces are HUGE, with the airport, the loft apartment and the boat chase being particularly impressive, and the CGI is kept in the background so as to not detract from the beautiful stuntwork on display.
Woo's American masterpiece. Even with MI:2 after this, he never made a better in the U.S.
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