MOVIE: Face/Off
STARRING: John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola, Gina Gershon, Dominque Swain, Nick Cassavetes
RELEASE DATE: June 19th, 1997
WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Amazon Prime, Apple TV)
By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)
Caster Troy / Sean Archer (both characters played by both (L to R) Nicolas Cage & John Travolta) in Face Off.
I don’t think you understand the excitement I had when the generator picked Face/Off for this week's Nic Gauge. This was the first film I saw Nic Cage in back when I was around 15 years old. Revisiting this film, I already knew I was going to have fun.
Face/Off came out in 1997, and was directed by John Woo. Woo has directed films like Hard Boiled, Mission Impossible 2, and Windtalkers (also staring Cage). Face/Off was nominated for an Academy Award for Sound Effect Editing at the 70th Academy Awards. The film was also the 11th highest-grossing film of 1997, earning $245 million. An interesting fact, the original actors that were envisioned to play the rivals were Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. My personal opinion, if those two would have been cast, I don’t think this film would have done as well. The chemistry between Cage/Travolta is what makes this movie so special.
Caster Troy / Sean Archer (both characters played by both (L to R) Nicolas Cage & John Travolta) in Face Off.
The plot begins after a failed assassination attempt from Castor Troy (at the time played by Cage) on FBI agent Sean Archer (at the moment played by John Travolta) that results in the death of Archer’s son. Archer spends six years hunting Troy and his brother Pollux (played by Alessandro Nivola). Eventually, Archer catches them, but not before they plant a bomb in Los Angeles. In order to gain information on the whereabouts of the bomb, Archer masquerades as Troy by literally wearing his face. Archer switches faces with Troy in order to speak with Pollux in a maximum-security prison. So now Cage playing a villain (Troy) becomes the good guy (Archer) and Travolta playing the good guy protagonist (Archer) becomes the criminal (Troy). Unfortunately, Troy escapes custody while still wearing Archer’s face and destroys all traces of that facial exchange. He gets his brother out of prison, and becoming the false hero, disarms the bomb. This leaves Good Guy Archer (who is wearing Bad Guy Troy’s face) to rot in his place as a criminal. Add on, Archer then escapes and has to save his family from Troy and try to get his life back.
Summary for those who are confused (easy to do when recapping the plot per editor Jenny):
Beginning of Story:
Cage/Troy = Bad
Travolta/Archer = Good
Mid-Story:
Cage/Archer = Good
Travolta/Troy = Bad
From start to finish, this film does not let up on the action. The first opening fight really tells you the story of this rivalry and it just gets better from there. Especially with the climactic battle at the end involving a speed boat fight. Throughout, Travolta and Cage work extremely well with each other and have great interactions. Because of the films personality switch, I think they did a great job with making Cage’s eccentric homicidal tendencies and Travolta’s more reserved and stoic nature easily transferable. I do find the whole actual face swap mechanic very cheesy and hilarious in practice, but as it is the main driving force of the film, I let it slide a little bit. Beyond that, the story itself, essentially being a Freaky Friday situation (but with more guns) works well, albeit slightly hilarious.
Troy (Nicolas Cage) “meme-scene” in Face/Off.
On the Nic Gauge, I comfortably sit this in-between “Bloody Awesome” and “Good” mainly because of how much meme material Cage’s expressions have given us with this film alone.
