‹ All movies

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

IMDbLetterboxdJustWatch
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.

6:02

Roger Ebert's review
In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:06:02Read transcript
  • Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, really enjoyed it and thought it was one of Nick Cage's best movies.
  • Later a passage from Ebert's June 27, 1997 review is read aloud: this is an actor's dream, and Travolta and Cage make the most of it, spending most of the movie acting as if they are in each other's bodies.
Share this discussion More Roger Ebert's review answers
17:36

Casting What-Ifs

Written in 1990 for Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger; Joel Silver wanted Michael Douglas and Harrison Ford; Joh...

Written in 1990 for Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger; Joel Silver wanted Michael Douglas and Harrison Ford; Johnny Depp was attached; Bruce Willis and Alc Baldwin (as transcribed) were paired; Van Damme and Steven Seagal were paired; Mark Wahlberg turned down Pollux; Julianna Margulis (as transcribed) turned down the Gina Gershon part

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:17:36Read transcript
  • The script was written in 1990 with Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in mind as the leads; the hosts agree that would have been horrible given the bodies, faces and accents, wondering how the vocal box would handle Arnold's or Sly's accent.
  • Joel Silver then optioned it wanting Michael Douglas and Harrison Ford, which some think would have been incredible but more like a sexual thriller going to a weird place; this detours into Michael Douglas's publicly stated claim about the sexual cause of his throat cancer, which one host insists is a true story to Google and others call a suburban legend and a humble brag.
  • Johnny Depp was in until he found out it was not a hockey movie, treated as true because it is on the internet, with jokes about whether he thought Pirates of the Caribbean or Edward Scissorhands were hockey movies too; Bruce Willis and Alc Baldwin (as transcribed) were teamed up at one point, which might actually have worked since Baldwin would dial it up.
  • The funniest pairing, apparently a real thing, was Van Damme and Steven Seagal, two of the greatest Russian moles America has to offer.
  • Would most have wanted to see Stallone and Schwarzenegger, because it does not make any sense and he needs to see that. — Jason Concepcion
  • Would want Douglas and Ford, who would have had so much contempt for the material, unable to believe they needed another ranch in Montana this badly. — Chris Ryan
  • Goes with Van Damme and Seagal (as transcribed 'Van Dammen to go'). — Shea Serrano
  • The others knew that pick was coming and call it the worst one of all of them.
  • Mark Wahlberg turned down the role of Castor's brother Pollux; the movie is better with Wahlberg if he is dialing it up, and Pollux's weird hairdo already looks like Wahlberg's Gambler character; Julianna Margulis (as transcribed) turned down the Gina Gershon part because she was filming ER, probably a good choice at that moment, since Gershon does not go around asking whether people saw her in Face Off.
Share this discussion More Casting What-Ifs answers
28:33

Half-Assed Internet Research

Cage and Travolta spent two weeks together learning each other's mannerisms; the film was originally set in the futur...

Cage and Travolta spent two weeks together learning each other's mannerisms; the film was originally set in the future, in space; the studio wanted the slash out of the title; the boat chase took four weeks to film; the special edition DVD has an alternate mirror ending; Castor Troy kills 20 people; a Metacritic score of 82

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:33Read transcript
  • The corner is called half-assed because you cannot believe pretty much anything on the internet; according to it Cage and Travolta spent two weeks together picking up each other's mannerisms and learning to play one another, which the hosts buy, and then played really crazy dialed-up versions of themselves.
  • Buys the two weeks: that is the kind of thing you do when you are an actor to pretend it is a job. — Jason Concepcion
  • Whose idea was it, Cage's or Travolta's? 100 percent Cage, imagined inviting him to Bangkok or Thailand to hang out.
  • Originally the film was set in the future, in space, where face technology is better; Woo would not do it and said it needed to be more realistic, which amuses the hosts since space travel has actually been done while face switching and magnetic boots have not.
  • The studio wanted to take the slash out of the title and John Woo resisted, thinking people would think it was a hockey movie, Johnny Depp being the great example; the boat chase took four weeks to film, which makes sense because it feels like it lasts four weeks in San Diego.
  • This was a cool era of movies where desert, marina and big city sit within three blocks, like Seven with its constant rain and then desert; the 90s did not care about meteorology, and it lasted through Collateral with Jamie Foxx getting from the airport to downtown in seven minutes.
  • The special edition DVD has deleted scenes and an alternate ending in which Travolta looks in the mirror and Joan Allen gasps as she and the audience see Castor's face as his reflection; the studio nixed it, an atrocious idea now on the disc.
  • Guesses that Castor Troy killed around 20 people. — Jason Concepcion
  • The body-count quiz draws guesses of at least 24 and 20, with three kills in the first 45 seconds before he slows down; the answer is 20, close enough that the accuracy is called disturbing, Concepcion credited with nailing it after two hosts watched the film four times in a row.
  • A favorite moment: after they get Castor, Sean walks into the office, is told the CIA sent champagne, says he did not know they did catering, then bummed out suggests a drink and names anonymous extras shot in the first shootout, Winters and Finesco, whom nobody cares about; Winters had been on screen for 27 seconds.
  • The favorite killing: Castor holds an undercover woman out of the plane, shoots her, throws her off, she gets run over by the plane and he does the Jordan shrug; before that he makes a crude come-on about sending her flowers and rephrases it into something lewder.
  • They had been working to catch an international, apolitical, stateless terrorist operating in Los Angeles who had already assassinated a federal agent's child, yet all it took was the brother buying a plane ticket and an agent already in place; he was wearing a fake mustache.
  • Metacritic gave it 82 out of 100, which astonished one host; another calls that a low score for acting that has Nicolas Cage pretending to be Castor Troy pretending to be John Travolta pretending to be Sean Archer pretending to be Castor Troy, five levels Inception deep.
Share this discussion More Half-Assed Internet Research answers
48:58

Picking Nits

Dr. Walsh makes the surgery sound routine; the secret off-the-books hospital; Archer tells nobody, not even his wife;...

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.
Share this discussion More Picking Nits answers
57:03

Probably Unanswerable Questions

Why did Cage get the less fun part? Who signed on first? Who got paid more? Did Cage's acting get worse or was he alw...

Why did Cage get the less fun part? Who signed on first? Who got paid more? Did Cage's acting get worse or was he always like this? Why not kill Castor once he wakes up faceless?

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:03Read transcript
  • Why did they give Nick Cage the less fun part, since Travolta becoming evil is so much more fun than Cage becoming the nice guy trapped in Cage's body; the counter is that Cage gets the first 40 minutes to be evil and had more fun in this movie, so his was the better role.
  • They did not direct Nick Cage, Nick Cage directed this movie, or freebase cocaine directed Nick Cage; you needed Cage because he is very good at being crazy and had to have trouble processing being another person, which Travolta could not do.
  • Who signed on first? Cage, the hosts decide, since he would look at the roles and want the one who kills a kid and assaults a teenager in the first 40 seconds. Who got paid more? Split between Travolta, fresh off Greece (as transcribed), and Cage, coming off the Oscar, The Rock and Con Air; the joke is that Travolta was told 15 and Cage got 20, or was paid in Chiclets.
  • Was Cage's acting just as bad here as it would be for the next 20 years, bad in a good way, or straight up great and the same as in all his movies? One host threatens to walk off the stage if the panel decides he was bad in this movie, and the choice narrows to good versus good-bad.
  • Does not know that he has seen a Nick Cage movie since this one, though he did see 8mm. — Chris Ryan
  • The audience is polled and says good-bad; a clip of Cage's interview about the role is played in which he says he meditated on the idea of wearing the face of the man who killed his son, literally not metaphorically, offered as proof that he was a good actor fully in it; the hosts guarantee Cage would still insist today that he took his face off and wore it.
  • Asked how he would explain to his wife that it is really him wearing someone else's face, says he would come home freaking out, laughing and crying, wearing Neil's face. — Shea Serrano
  • In the movie the only reason she believes him is that he names his blood type, O negative or so, and talks about the son's bed; one host would try to come up with memories he has not tweeted about so she would know he was serious, though there is no way it is happening either way.
  • An audience member adds an unanswerable question: when Castor wakes up bandaged after the switch, why not just kill him; the hosts call it a strong point they had not thought of and joke about the Geneva Convention, the Bill of Rights and the rule of law keeping this from being a dictatorship, since removing his face in an office park is already the act of human rights here while he still has the sanctity of life.
Share this discussion More Probably Unanswerable Questions answers