OK, so this might be cheating a tiny bit because technically I have seen this movie many times and no one EXPLICITLY requested it. But Wife believed that, and I quote, “the people would really want to hear” my thoughts about this one. So here we are, watching John Woo’s masterpiece, Face/Off for the first time in probably 10 years or so, and man oh man is there a lot that I forgot about this movie. For the uninitiated, this is the classic tale of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swapping faces - it’s kind of like The Parent Trap if one of the Lindsay Lohan twins was a professional…bad person? (It’s unclear what Castor Troy actually does besides fuck shit up) and the other twin was a high-ranking FBI agent. Oh and the first twin killed the son of the second twin. Ok, so it’s not really like The Parent Trap. Full disclosure: I apologize for nothing. I unabashedly love this movie for every single ridiculous moment of its 2 hr 19 min running time. And I saw this in THEATERS. I was TEN YEARS OLD. And before you start judging my parents too harshly, this movie inspired a very healthy fear of both drugs and plastic surgery into me, so really it was more effective than most D.A.R.E. programs according to the data, so I say once again - thanks John Woo!
TWO HOURS and NINETEEN MINUTES. It’s frankly ridiculous, and if it were any other director I would say learn to edit, man, but John Woo really knows how to make a slow motion shot work.
Castor (Nic Cage) is so much more disgusting now that I’m grown. Like, when I was a kid he was just a cartoonish villain, but now his rampant misogyny and sexual predator antics at every turn is WAY more creepy and disturbing than his tendency to just shoot people.
More people should follow John Woo’s lead - this motherfucker loves sparks in his action scenes, and they’re so much more visually interesting than just plain explosions. Broke: you shoot a car’s gas tank and it explodes. Woke: You shoot the engine of a passenger jet and a shower of sparks goes everywhere.
This is Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage’s finest performance, tbh. He gets to go full unhinged crazy pants for half the movie, and then turn on a dime and play the determined no-nonsense FBI man. I genuinely love Nic Cage with my entire heart, because he - has - the - range.
One underrated thing about this movie is its score. The funky bass line when Castor first arrives, the overwrought strings during every chase scene, the triumphant orchestral swell when Sean stages the prison coup - it’s so cheesy and SO good.
Reason #57 this whole face switching plan is insane - they did no psychological exam or evaluation to determine whether Sean (John Travolta) would lose his damn mind by going through the intense trauma of wearing his son’s murderer’s face. You’re telling me he didn’t have to fill out a single form before they cut his literal face off? If I know anything about the government, I know there would be so much paperwork involved before anyone’s face was going anywhere.
Why are we not talking about the massive problem it is that there exists a prison where “the Geneva convention doesn’t exist” and that Amnesty International has never heard of? Like, Castor is a bad guy, sure, but we’re supposed to just be fine with this? This is the precursor to the raft prison they built in Captain America: Civil War that is meant to house literal superheroes and is completely off the grid. That’s not okay! The copaganda runs so deep, it genuinely boggles my mind that I grew up watching movies like this and only now that I’ve unlearned so many things can I even recognize how absolutely fucked up it all is.
John Travolta doesn’t get enough credit for this movie either - all the attention goes to Nic Cage and his bonkers facial expressions, but Travolta is having the time of his goddamn life doing his little dances, singing his little songs. We all know he loves musicals, and I love that he gets to showcase that here but through villainy.
Sean’s entire escape plan hinged on Dubov (Chris Bauer) getting his brain fried first, but he had no way of knowing that would be the exact moment Dubov would be in the clinic getting fried.
Also one of my favorite things is that during the escape when one of the guards is burned by acid he screams the same scream that was used in the credits for Aah! Real Monsters.
Oh and we have to talk about the fact that Sean escapes the prison by just - jumping in the fucking ocean? How did he not die? How did he get to land? And the helicopter just STOPPED LOOKING for him? Didja spend all your money on magnetized boots so the “helicopter that searches for escaped prisoners” fund ran dry in your terrifying war crime prison budget?
In retrospect, I should have realized that I was into women based on how very hard I crushed on Gina Gershon in this movie. Velvet top with satin pants and the Jennifer Aniston haircut? SO INTO IT.
Taylor Swift is re-recording all her old masters now, right? I’m just saying, I really think she would be smart to collaborate with John Woo on a new video for “Sparks Fly,” because, and I can’t stress this enough, NOBODY loves sparks more than John Woo. Nobody.
What even is this building Dietrich (Nick Cassavetes) lives in? It’s like an airplane hanger but there are stairs and black lacquer furniture, but there’s like a basement lobby thing that’s all marble and tile and a circle of mirrors and giant plants? Who designed this? Is it a hotel? I have so many questions.
I know that the benchmark for future technology is the flying car, but I ask you, how is it possible that we don’t live in a world where people can swap faces like this yet? Or DO WE and it is all just black ops operations like this. Oh lord, I’m probably gonna start getting batshit crazy QAnon type conspiracy Facebook ads now that I’ve typed that sentence on the internet.
Also pretty fucked up that Castor - as Sean - sleeps with Eve (Joan Allen) and both she and the real Sean are just kind of like “yeah I know, rape by deception really sucks, guess we’ll just have to deal with it.” Like how much therapy does this whole family need now??
What kind of church is this where doves are just flapping around INSIDE the entrance by the remembrance candles? And there’s just so many of them. Like at least 30 doves. Doesn’t that feel like too many doves? You know what, nevermind, I shouldn’t have doubted John Woo’s vision - keep the sparks and doves coming, buddy, I’m here for it.
There’s no way you drive a boat THROUGH ANOTHER FUCKING BOAT and emerge completely unharmed.
Ohh teen daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain) doesn’t have her nose ring anymore! That’s how you know she’s no longer broken.
And Sean just brings a new 5-year-old son to live with them and everything is totally fine, as if no time has passed. That’s how you heal collective trauma, right? By simply replacing your murdered son with a different 5-year-old boy? Ah, the 90s.
Everything about this movie is exactly what I want movies to be like. You’ve got great villains who are really in it for the DRAMA of it all, you’ve got stalwart and true (read: repressed) heroes who are willing to do what it takes to get the job done, and you’ve got more sparks and doves than you know what to do with.
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