Starring John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon and Allesandro Nivola Directed by John Woo Rated R, with profanity, strong violence and sadism Running time 136 minutes Jack gives this film a rating of 9 out of 10

(June 27, 1997) -- Stars John Travolta and Nicolas Cage and director John Woo are all at the top of their game in Face/Off, and action-movie gamesmanship doesn't get much better than that.

Travolta and Cage co-star in this operatic and intensely violent fable about two adversaries who swap identities and pursue each other across an action-packed dreamlike landscape that can only be called the world of Woo.

In it, gun battles and terrorist attacks are staged like ballets, bullets rip and bombs blow in segments captured in poetic slow motion, with off-kilter angles and amid intricately designed surroundings.

During a pitched battle in a seaside chapel, doves flutter wildly through the gun smoke -- a typical Woo method of generating heightened reality and stressing the good-vs.-evil core of his story.

The Hong Kong movie maestro finally has made a Hollywood film on a par with The Killer, Hard Boiled and the other Asian action gems that have brought Woo fame throughout the world. His first U.S. efforts -- Hard Target and Broken Arrow -- featured flashes of Woo's brilliance, but the director seemed reined-in by Hollywood's action-movie formula. Face/Off is 100 percent Woo.

For uninitiated filmgoers, it may all seem too much. Good Woo films are morality tales elevated to operatic heights. Everything -- explosions, body counts, car chases, performances -- are purposefully and consistently over the top.

However, none of the movie's elements careen out of control -- Woo is a confident puppetmaster, pulling strings that generate a mesmerizing and artful one-of-a-kind film style, blending Chinese opera and theatre and Hollywood musicals and westerns. Woo is -- as Nicolas Cage calls him -- "a signature director."

In Face/Off, Travolta plays Sean Archer, an FBI agent who is drained and cynical after a long fight to capture arch-terrorist Castor Troy (Cage). The sadistic Troy has been a priority for years -- professionally, because he has been the mastermind of much terror and destruction; and personally, because he killed Archer's five-year-old son.

Troy is captured -- and left in a coma -- early in the film, but Archer discovers the struggle isn't over. Troy has left a giant time bomb where it can devastate much of Los Angeles. Archer must discover the whereabouts before it blows.

When the bureau's high-tech medical division informs him of new surgery techniques, Archer conceives a plan. He'll allow the physicians to give him Troy's face -- literally -- and he'll assume Troy's cruel but charismatic personality. Then he'll go into a maximum-security prison and trick Troy's psychotic brother into mentioning where the bomb is ticking.

Troy, meanwhile, awakens from his coma and forces physicians to pluck Archer's face out of the saline solution and put it on his skull. The identity swap is now complete. Troy escapes and uses his new identity to get into Archer's house -- and next to the agent's unsuspecting wife and daughter.

Ultimately, Archer-turned-Troy and Troy-turned-Archer meet in an inspired Woo finale.

How could any good actors resist this material? Travolta and Cage clearly have a ball, as each plays two characters. It is also inspired fun for us, watching two of the day's most popular and distinctive stars cleverly adapting one another's mannerisms and screen personae.

And the lead actors and Woo drew other notables into the excellent supporting cast, led by two-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen, as Travolta's wife and Cage's potential victim; Allesandro Nivola as Troy's wacko brother; and Gina Gershon as Cage's much-abused girlfriend.