Imagine walking through MSU's campus knowing you have an enemy watching your every move. Then picture yourself having to don the appearance of that person, looking at yourself in the mirror with contempt every day as you await the day that you can take your nemesis down.
OK, it may sound like a bad video game plot to people not familiar with the film, but the 1997 classic "Face/Off" executes the idea flawlessly without coming off as convoluted.
Much of the film's success was produced solely by director John Woo, who's stylish, gun-heavy action sequences have made him a favorite among action aficionados.
"Face/Off" is packed with so many intense moments that most people probably forgot the story that's attached to the movie.
FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) is a family man who for years has been a target of freelance terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). When the FBI gets word that Troy's brother has booked a flight to Los Angeles, Archer and his team of agents flock to the scene to apprehend the artful criminal.
One plane crash later - a direct result of Archer's men - Troy brags to Archer about a bomb he planted that's going to destroy the City of Angels just before Troy enters a state of unconsciousness.
Soon after realizing that Troy isn't bluffing and the only person with the information to disarm the bomb is the terrorist's newly incarcerated brother, Archer undergoes a surgical procedure to switch faces with the comatose killer.
In a perfect world, the movie would stop shortly after - Archer having completed surgery, disarming the bomb, and undergoing a procedure to get his own mug back. But naturally, Troy awakes from his coma and kidnaps the doctor who operated on him and has the same surgery done to his face, replacing it with Archer's.
The rest of a movie plays out as a game of cat and mouse, only Tom is really Jerry and Jerry is really Tom.
With "Face/Off," the movie works because of the psychology present in the characters. It can't be easy to see a person who looks like you, knowing that by destroying them you're in essence destroying yourself.
Then there's the role the main characters' significant others play. One can only imagine how they can come to grips with the fact they've been sleeping with the wrong person.
The last key element that makes the movie work is the fact that Cage and Travolta are very adept at playing each other in the film. Movies with similar concepts often fail because the real-life actors don't have the range to mimic another actor's best traits.
In "Face/Off," it's done so well that you focus more on the fact that Archer and Castor have reversed roles rather than that Cage and Travolta have.
Factor all those positives into one explosive cocktail and you have "Face/Off" in a nutshell. Woo does a good job of transforming an otherwise solid melodrama into a fast-paced thriller that just happens to be a thinking man's movie.