Picking Nits
Dr. Walsh makes the surgery sound routine; the secret off-the-books hospital; Archer tells nobody, not even his wife; prison guards killed rather than informed; Castor never tells Dietrich; a prison fight five minutes after surgery; the hasty reverse surgery and the added love handles; nobody guarding Cage in the coma; Time's Man of the Year for one bomb; helicopters giving up and a 40-mile swim; holding a 250-pound man by a gun barrel; shooting a guard in the toe; Travolta's chin cleft and Cage's teeth glossed over
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:58Read transcript
- Dr. Walsh spends two minutes on the surgery as if Travolta were getting his hamstring fixed: with the new anti-inflammatories healing takes days not weeks, then they simply connect the muscles, tear ducts and nerve endings; the hosts do not think it is that easy, though he sold it well enough that one would trade faces with a fellow host for a week.
- This is not a hospital but an illegal secret one, like in the Palisades; why could Travolta not tell his wife or anybody he worked with? Only CCH Pounder and Robert Wisdom knew, it was totally off the books, and the three people who knew were burned alive; still, one host would definitely tell his wife the night before that he was switching faces with the guy who killed their son, hard as that conversation would be.
- Why could they not tell the prison guards instead of killing them, when those guys are all on the take? And why did Castor not tell Dietrich, the bald guy, when other people in his life knew?
- Could Travolta as Cage have survived the prison fight with a new face, punched five minutes after surgery when he was told not to get hit, his face itching as he scratches it; way more attention went into putting Cage's face on Travolta, while Travolta's face on Cage was a hasty shotgun job done under threat of immolation, yet afterwards it is the carefully made face that itches while the wearer of the rushed one loves his new face with no itching or side effects.
- They explained how they would get rid of Travolta's love handles, so how did they add love handles, especially with a gun to the head? And why was nobody watching Cage in the coma, a feared independent terrorist who has taken out 20 people, with his face in a bowl under a spotlight ten feet away?
- Once Cage's character, wearing Travolta's face, foils his own bomb to become the hero, the film casually drops that Sean Archer was Time Magazine's Man of the Year, and his boss even cites it; would you win Man of the Year for foiling one bomb, and who did he beat in 97, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton?
- Castor escapes the Catalina prison with a 70-foot jump into the water, and the circling helicopters give up at once, the action-movie rule that once you land in the water the helicopter flies away; does he survive the leap and the bullets, swimming 40 miles underwater to L.A., presumably like a dolphin coming up every once in a while?
- One nitpick maybe nobody notices: as Cage and the prisoner called Machine or Sabaka (as transcribed) escape, murdering guards, Sabaka falls over the rail and Cage holds this 250-pound man up by the barrel of his gun, which would take years on the machines; the hero cannot kill a guard or he would be bad, so Sabaka does the killing while he shoots a guard in the toe from 40 feet; both men shoot well until they shoot at each other at close range and dodge bullets.
- Earlier, while on what aged worst, a host who hates to nitpick this movie notes that Travolta's big chin cleft and Cage's rat-like teeth were just glossed over, though the film does joke about the chin.