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The Rewatchables ·

Face/Off

year 1997decade 90sdirector John Woogenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Shea Serranohost Chris Ryanhost Jason Concepcion
All 14 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 9:36

The Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout

A rewatchable movie needs four or five parts you have to watch when flicking channels at the 30 or 50 minute mark, and this one has a lot: the airport shootout that leaves Nick Cage in NFL concussion protocol, the surgery face-switch scenes, the escape from a maximum security prison on Catalina Island where everybody wears magnetic boots, the Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout with a little kid in headphones, the boat chase and the ending.

Chris Ryan: Asked for the most rewatchable scene, answers that it is absolutely the Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 54:05

"There will be a lot of changes around here"

Lines put forward: 'I'm Castor Troy' (as transcribed Caster Trey) from the clip already shown; evil Travolta's 'it's like looking in the mirror, but not', a really good Travolta line; and his throwaway 'lies, mistrust, mixed messages, this is turning into a real marriage', offered as a senior high school yearbook quote.

The film

Face/Off (1997)

Directed by John Woo · Drama

139 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

John Travolta Sean Archer / "Castor Troy"
Nicolas Cage Castor Troy / "Sean Archer"
Joan Allen Eve Archer, Sean's wife
Dominique Swain Jamie Archer, Eve and Sean's daughter
Alessandro Nivola Pollux Troy, Castor's brother
Gina Gershon Sasha Hassler, Dietrich's younger sister
Nick Cassavetes Dietrich Hassler, Troy's primary drug kingpin
Harve Presnell Victor Lazarro
Colm Feore Dr. Malcolm Walsh
Robert Wisdom Tito Biondi
CCH Pounder Hollis Miller
Margaret Cho Wanda Chang
John Carroll Lynch Prison Guard Walton
Thomas Jane Burke Hicks
Matt Ross Loomis
Chris Bauer Ivan Dubov

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

9:36

Most Rewatchable Scene

The Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout; the prison escape

The Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout; the prison escape

In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 00:09:36Read transcript
  • A rewatchable movie needs four or five parts you have to watch when flicking channels at the 30 or 50 minute mark, and this one has a lot: the airport shootout that leaves Nick Cage in NFL concussion protocol, the surgery face-switch scenes, the escape from a maximum security prison on Catalina Island where everybody wears magnetic boots, the Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout with a little kid in headphones, the boat chase and the ending.
  • Asked for the most rewatchable scene, answers that it is absolutely the Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout. — Chris Ryan
  • The shootout begins with Cage entering a trip-hop bachelor pad in an airport hangar, Tricky's Christian Sands (as transcribed) playing to date it to 1997, Castor's son present for some reason, absinthe and a hallucinatory out-of-body experience, and the child always in the line of fire with nobody thinking to put him in a bathtub under a cover; one host would rewatch the whole movie if it were only this scene.
  • Castor's henchman brings out a beautiful oak box holding Chiclets, prescription pills guessed to be an early Dutch version of molly, a dozen rolled joints and two gold-plated handguns, presented as if it were the Ark of the Covenant or a Kansas basketball signing; the two men then fake-laugh at each other unironically a year before the Austin Powers henchmen scene.
  • One host personally thought the prison escape was the most rewatchable scene, and another says they are with them on that.
  • Picks the Somewhere Over the Rainbow shootout as John Woo's victory lap, Woo announcing he is in Hollywood and spending money, with the kid in slow motion, a shootout kept being added to, and so many vases full of lilies blown up again. — Jason Concepcion
  • Two of the hosts share a love of prison movies, to the point of two-in-the-morning emails about a Vince Vaughn prison-movie trailer; the magnetic gravity boots are a good prison wrinkle every jail in America should have, and the film keeps adding: a shootout, then drugs, then a kid in the middle, then Over the Rainbow; a prison in the ocean, then super magnets, then electrocution.
  • The prison is like the Death Star, an impregnable super weapon undone by one trick, since all you have to do is get rid of the boots; Cage brings the four-billion-dollar prison down with one cigarette, fighting to keep it, getting sent to shock treatment, burning a guard and starting a full-scale riot.
  • Travolta switches faces and goes into the prison as Castor Troy, and Castor's brother Pollux is for some reason immediately suspicious; a host does the Pollux impression on request, and nobody can explain why Pollux would wonder whether they switched faces when he thought his brother was dead after the wind turbine.
  • Answers that if he had his college enemy Neil's face on his face, and his voice, his wife Laramie would never be convinced it was him; there is nothing he could say. — Shea Serrano
  • The clip of the prison fight is played, where Travolta wearing Castor's face has to convince the brother it is really him, shouting I'm Castor Troy (as transcribed Caster Joy) and crying; one host calls it their favorite scene in the whole movie, and the tears are joked about as post-concussion emotion or life without a nicotine patch, with Roger Ebert imagined comparing it to first seeing Bergman.
  • Did people take Cage at face value because of Leaving Las Vegas? The entire 90s came and went before anyone collectively asked whether Nick Cage is a bad actor; asked whether they want to change their minds on the scene, the hosts say no.
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20:54

What’s Aged the Best?

The prison fight; the concept itself; the 3D-printed ear at Walsh Industries; the magnetic boots; working the title i...

The prison fight; the concept itself; the 3D-printed ear at Walsh Industries; the magnetic boots; working the title into a scene; Joan Allen going along with the switch

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:20:54Read transcript
  • The magnetic boots and the concept itself, going undercover by switching faces with a guy in a coma, still hold up.
  • Joan Allen plays Travolta's wife, and after the switch she and Cage wearing Travolta's face live as husband and wife, which raises the eternal twenty-year question of whether the surgery extended below the neck; the hosts imagine the conversation with CCH Pounder (as transcribed Bounder) and conclude there was no time, he had to go undercover now.
  • When did she know? Probably immediately, there is no way they were the same; one host returns to whether his own wife would know, and the joke turns on whether she would recognize that detail of his enemy Neil.
  • Walsh Industries, where the procedure is done, convinces him because a guy is 3D printing an ear when he walks in; they were also doing chest hairs, removing double chins, moving scars and hairlines, and they take a shot at Travolta's love handles; Travolta could have worked out before filming, since Cage is noticeably skinnier and ready to go.
  • A clip of the title worked into an actual scene is played, 'I'd like to take his face off', which the movie then says six more times; all action movies should do this, with the imagined Mufasa line to Simba, 'you are the Lion King'.
  • Polled on what aged best, one host goes with the fight in the prison, sticking with that one as the best magnetic-prison-boots fight ever, a scene you could put in every movie; another likes the idea of the actual face-off part and would watch a new Face Off every year.
  • After the choices are run through again, magnetic boots, the concept, the title in a scene and Joan Allen realizing early that it is not her husband but going with it, the concept itself is picked and echoed, since it could be a Netflix series everybody would watch, with an expanded face-off universe where he spends three seasons trying to get his old face back.
  • Picks the moment they walk in and are 3D printing the ear, which seemed so amazing then and can just be done now. — Jason Concepcion
  • Whether you can really make an ear at home is argued: you can make a sculpture of an ear, not attach it to a person's head, which is the important part.
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25:12

What’s Aged the Worst?

The early CGI and obvious stunt doubles; the father-daughter sexual tension and everything with Dominique Swain; the ...

The early CGI and obvious stunt doubles; the father-daughter sexual tension and everything with Dominique Swain; the deception of Travolta's wife, named plainly as rape; the caress-heavy lip touching; the Pollux performance; the improvised sibling kiss

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:12Read transcript
  • The CGI is early and needed to be better, especially for a scene shown later, and there is obvious stunt-double work where Cage suddenly has way more hair than three seconds earlier, looking like Kiki Vandelway (as transcribed).
  • The brother-sister kiss between Dietrich and Gina Gershon's character was improvised on set by Gershon and Nick Cassavetes, improv incest to add a little salt to the relationship, and the director (transcribed as John Lewis) reportedly said go with it.
  • There is a lot of weird touching of the lips of people you do not know, three different times; it is a caress-heavy movie. Pollux Troy was a nice juicy role where the hosts wanted more, did not think the performance was good, and note there is a reason the actor was not seen again.
  • The sexual tension between Cage wearing Travolta's face and Travolta's daughter is flat-out disarming and uncomfortable, not super comfortable in 97 and more uncomfortable as the years pass, down to putting on a Tricky album for Dominique Swain.
  • Swain's character is a Hong-Kong director's idea of a goth teenager: a little more eyeliner, a fake nose ring, blonde and otherwise a regular person, supposedly on the edge.
  • Travolta agreeing to switch faces has not really changed the world, and the film glossed over Travolta's big chin cleft and Cage's rat-like teeth, although the characters joke about the chin and tease each other about the love handles.
  • Says the whole father-daughter thing is an L for everyone involved, everything with Dominique Swain, down to the end when her father brings home a strange boy to replace the child who died and she suddenly dresses like she just went to American Eagle because everything is fine now. — Chris Ryan
  • Picks something from the aged-best list, the plot point in which Cage's character, wearing Travolta's face, has sex with the wife under false pretenses, which he names plainly as secretly raping her and says is literally what happened. — Shea Serrano
  • Others agree that is literally what happened and you cannot do that; in the 90s it was supposed to be funny and now it is not, and one host who is still going with the CGI is made to feel bad about it.
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44:38

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Pollux Troy (Alessandro Navola, as transcribed); the escaping prisoner played by the actor from 8mm and The Wire; CCH...

Pollux Troy (Alessandro Navola, as transcribed); the escaping prisoner played by the actor from 8mm and The Wire; CCH Pounder

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:44:38Read transcript
  • Nominees: Nick Cassavetes as Dietrich, Gina Gershon, Dominique Swain as the daughter, Alessandro Navola (as transcribed) as the brother Pollux, a choice the host does not condone, CCH Pounder, who gets burned to death along with Robert Wisdom's Bunny Colvin from The Wire, Thomas Jane, Todd Parker in Boogie Nights, as one of the prisoners, and the actor who played Machine in 8mm and Sabaka (as transcribed) in The Wire, who escapes with Cage and is one host's favorite.
  • Margaret Cho gets an honorable mention; the hosts cannot believe she is in it as comic relief with one joke, a terrible line about a transplant for the stick up someone's rear.
  • Picks the brother Pollux because of his weird voice, doing the ten million dollars line. — Jason Concepcion
  • Another host has the prisoner Sabaka (as transcribed), our dude whom the others like too.
  • Another goes with CCH Pounder because she smokes in every scene she is in, including inside the medical lab during the face transplant, then puts her cigarette out on the comatose patient, which is never okay.
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46:37

Is This Movie Better With…?

Yes; Trejo as Sean Archer in place of Travolta, or as Castor Troy

Yes; Trejo as Sean Archer in place of Travolta, or as Castor Troy

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:46:37Read transcript
  • A new category suggested by a reader whose name the host cannot remember, already recorded for The Fugitive but not yet heard: would this movie have been better with Danny Trejo and in what role, to be asked on every Rewatchables; for Face Off there is no way it is not better, and the hosts imagine an all-Trejo version where every character has had a Trejo face transplant, Heat Trejo and Dusk Till Dawn Trejo switching personalities.
  • One host wants him as a quiet guy, another as Castor Troy (as transcribed Cassius Troy), and another wants John Travolta out and Trejo as Sean Archer, a classic federal agent, so that in the briefing scene he skips the monologue and just says 'Machete don't face off'.
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47:41

Apex Mountain

Nick Cage (one host's yes at 157; the moderator closes 'nobody had an apex' at 159)

Nick Cage (one host's yes at 157; the moderator closes 'nobody had an apex' at 159)

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:47:41Read transcript
  • John Woo: no, with no explanation offered.
  • Joan Allen: no, though a contender, and one host would feel so bad if this were her Apex Mountain.
  • Gina Gershon: no; Bound is suggested instead, and Cocktail (as transcribed) comes up with a don't-get-me-started.
  • Travolta: no way; he was the biggest star in the world, but this is a second, mini-pleasant apex era for him rather than the peak.
  • Nick Cage: a definite yes, this rather than the Oscar is his Apex, after the trilogy of those films in a row, followed by the movie where he plays an angel who comes back, after which it all fell apart.
  • Tangent: Travolta also played an angel, in 1996's Michael, whereas in Phenomenon he had an accident rather than being an angel and is remembered only for the poster pose.
  • After a joke asking whether this is the apex for smoking a cigarette without a face, the host wraps up by saying nobody had an apex, despite the definite yes for Cage moments earlier.
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1:02:15

Who Won the Movie?

Nicolas Cage vs. John Woo (1-1 on distinct host ballots; a further Cage pick may be the first voter; the audience pol...

Nicolas Cage vs. John Woo (1-1 on distinct host ballots; a further Cage pick may be the first voter; the audience poll called it unanimous for Cage)

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:02:15Read transcript
  • In ten or eleven Rewatchables the show has never had two stars pitted against each other, literally and figuratively, since Heat, where Pacino was named the winner; in the spirit of overacting one host goes Nick Cage.
  • Picks John Woo, since this was really the last time he got to make a heat-rock Hollywood movie before going off the rails. — Jason Concepcion
  • A tangent on Woo's later Paycheck with Ben Affleck, which nobody can quite summarize, filed with Reindeer Games among the Affleck films of six years that had the title first and the script later.
  • After the tangent someone says they also think Cage won the movie, which may be the first Cage voter restating rather than a new vote; the audience is asked and answers Cage in what is called a unanimous decision; it was a tough podcast for Travolta, who got beat up and lost in a lot of ways, plus the love handles in the movie.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Nicolas Cage
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