BY TAY YEK KEAK

I SCREAM at my neighbour. He screams back at me. I shout out 50 swear words.

He curses 51. I throw last Thursday's fish bones at his door. He counters with last Friday's pig's head.

In a Face/Off sense (the John Woo movie of that title pits Nicolas Cage against John Travolta), we're more or less evenly matched, with the same b***hiness, same lousy lawyers and the same chances of spending 10 years in prison.

We're like Alien versus Predator, Donald Duck versus Mickey Mouse, Crispy Duck versus Fried Chicken.

Face-offs are very important. They make the Identikit artist very happy because he's paid twice for drawing the same person. Usually light and dark versions of the same character, in the way Batman differs from his alter ego Bruce Wayne, and Mel Gibson isn't the same before and after happy hour. The sober Mel directs Apocalypto. The drunken Mel blames the Apocalypse on a certain ethnic group.

That's why I think Johnny Depp and Christian Bale are the same person in Public Enemies. Why? Because it's the ultimate face-off deal this year, if you don't count your latest Botox jab.

Check this out. Johnny and Christian both shoot people; Christian the cop chases while Johnny the hood hides. Isn't that cute? It's like when they were kids. Only, now, they've got guns.

Both have the same obsessive drive (one to nab felons, the other to rob banks) and, man, they're both so snazzily dressed in Depression-era suits that I'm sure they go to the same tailor.

But on different days.

But, you see, the thing they illustrate is that one of the main tricks in setting up a classic match-up is to build up the anticipation.

You don't want to have an everybody-sing-Kumbaya campfire scene because the shark in Jaws must not be seen until midway into the movie to make it more exciting.

Now, Michael Mann is very skilled at doing the Romeo-and-Juliet-never-on-the- balcony thing. Previously, in 1995's Heat, he made good guy Al Pacino confront bad guy Robert De Niro only once in a diner over coffee before all hell broke loose. And, in 2004's Collateral, Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx held the tension as Tom, the psychotic passenger, sat at the back while Jamie was the scared cabby in front.

This, if you ever want to make a great face-off flick or attend the Fann Wong-Christopher Lee wedding, is the absolutely crucial concept of 'so near, yet so far'. As far as possible, prolong the dance and extend the tension, although you know eventually that the drawstring is bound to break.

You must also paint the broad strokes with very subtle touches.

The big question about Christian's Batman and Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight was not about who's good or bad. But who's actually crazier.

So, instead of simply asking whether the cop in Public Enemies is more saintly than the criminal, you want to know how they're both cut from the same cloth. Who's more evil? Lord Voldemort or Dick Cheney?

How does this affect me and my neighbour? I don't know.

I'm busy figuring out if I'm going to sew that bag of rotten meat I've been saving into the hem of his curtains or his mattress.

For more my paper stories click here.