Face/Off is a 1997 American action thriller film directed by John Woo, starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. The two both play an FBI agent and a terrorist, sworn enemies who assume the physical appearance of one another.^[2] The film exemplifies gun fu and heroic bloodshed action sequences, and has Travolta and Cage each playing two personalities. It was the first Hollywood film in which Woo was given complete creative control and was acclaimed by both audiences and critics. Eventually grossing $245 million worldwide, Face/Off was a financial success.^[3]

Plot

Most wanted civil freelance terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) is relentlessly pursued by FBI Special Agent in Charge Sean Archer (John Travolta). Years earlier, Castor, in an attempt to kill Sean, accidentally killed the agent's young son, Michael; the two have been obsessed with each other ever since. The FBI receives information that Castor's brother, Pollux (Alessandro Nivola), has chartered a plane at LAX airport. Sean knows that Pollux will not fly without Castor, so he leads a joint FBI/LAPD team to chase the plane down, which crashes into a hangar. In the ensuing chaos, Pollux is captured by the FBI and Castor is knocked into a coma after bragging to Sean about a bomb that will go off neglecting to mention the location of the bomb. Sean's work colleagues congratulate him on catching Castor, but the agent rebuffs the praise he is given and says the deaths of the FBI agents is nothing to celebrate about.

Sean then finds out Castor was not joking about the bomb after discovering a tape that was recovered in the jet crash in Pollux's briefcase which contains information about the bomb. After a number of interrogations, Sean discovers the date but not the location of the bomb itself. Knowing that Pollux is the only person who can reveal the location and that Castor is the only one who should be informed, Sean is presented by his colleagues a secret mission that he will undergo an experimental surgical procedure to temporarily graft Castor's face onto his skull, infiltrate the prison where Pollux is being held, and get the location of the bomb which is the only way to do so. Arrangements are made for Sean (as Castor, voice and all) to be incarcerated with Pollux in prison. Once there, he successfully learns the bomb's location, the Los Angeles Convention Center. Meanwhile, Castor unexpectedly awakens from his coma and, realizing what has happened, calls his men to kidnap the doctor named Walsh who performed the surgery. Castor (who is smoking, popping painkillers and watching video of the surgery when the doctor arrives), then forces Walsh to graft Sean's face onto him and Walsh is later murdered by being burned alive with flammable liquid done by Castor's henchmen. Castor (as Sean, voice and all) visits him in prison, informing him that he killed everyone who knew about the mission (including Sean's friend Tito, who had his wedding band) and destroyed all the evidence. He leaves, telling Sean his plans to take advantage of his job and family. Castor then has the FBI negotiate a deal with Pollux (who figures out the switch) for his release, in return for revealing the bomb's location. Castor proceeds to disarm the bomb and revels in the praise from Sean’s colleagues and the media.

Following Castor's disarmament of the bomb, Sean begins an escape attempt. A violent battle ensues, ending with the FBI agent successfully evading the prison guards and leaves the prison. Later, Sean visits Castor’s entourage and successfully fools them into thinking that he is the real Castor. Sean then asks them to help kill “Archer”. Elsewhere, Castor initiates aggressive sex play with Sean's wife Eve (Joan Allen) and flirts with his teenage daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain). Meanwhile, Sean finds himself having to take drugs to impress Castor’s gang. Also present is Sasha Hassler (Gina Gershon), Castor's ex-girlfriend, and their son Adam. Earlier, Sean threatened to put her son into foster care, but he now realizes that she is a devoted mother who is trying to raise Adam away from the poisonous influence of Castor. Sean (as Castor) promises her that Archer will not bother her any more. Sean starts to bond with Adam, reminding him of his deceased son, Michael. Pollux, watching Castor’s old safehouse, informs Castor of Sean's arrival. Castor sends an FBI team in. A gunfight ensues, killing most of Castor’s crew, while Sasha and Adam escape with Sean’s help. As he makes his own escape, Sean catches Pollux and drops him through the apartment skylight, killing him. Castor is devastated, and when a fellow agent comments, Castor shoots him in the head. Later, the FBI's Assistant Director in Charge, Victor Lazarro, berates Castor for the unnecessary carnage at the safehouse. An already angered Castor confesses his true identity and kills him, blaming his death on a heart attack. As a result, Castor is promoted to FBI Assistant Director. Meanwhile, Sean returns to his suburban home and tries to convince Eve that he is really her husband and she is only convinced slightly after he tells her the story of their first kiss. For scientific proof, Eve, who's a doctor, get a blood sample from Castor and finds it is type AB (Sean's is O negative). The morning comes and as Eve tends to her husband's gun wound, Sean assumes Castor can't be touched now that he's the new acting director, at which point Eve tells him he'll be at Lazarro's funeral.

A few days later, Sean arrives at Lazarro's funeral during the Mass and prays in a side chapel until it finishes and the mourners leave. He then discovers that Castor is holding Eve hostage. A gunfight ensues, in which Castor's crew are killed. Sasha saves Eve and takes a bullet for Sean, before she dies she makes him promise that he will not let Adam grow up to be criminal as well. Castor then takes a late-arriving Jamie hostage, but she is able to escape, ironically using a knife trick he taught her. Prior to this, Castor tried to strangle Sean but wound up dislodging a microchip on his larynx (which gave him Castor's voice), thus returning his voice to normal. Castor takes off to the docks and steals a speed boat. Sean then jumps into another speed boat and goes after Castor. After a lengthy chase, both Sean and Castor are thrown ashore by an explosion resulting from their boats colliding. The two engage in a final hand-to-hand confrontation. After Castor beats his foe with a pole, Sean grabs a spear gun and stabs Castor in the leg, making him unable to fight, Castor then tries to destroy Sean's face on himself to prevent him from reclaiming it which results in Sean eventually killing Castor with the spear gun. Later, Eve is able to explain the entire situation to the FBI, successfully convincing them of her husband's true identity. Sean is then taken to the hospital and his face and body are restored, minus a scar on his chest from when Michael was killed.

The film ends as Sean arrives home with Adam, bringing him into his family in order to fulfill his promise to Sasha of not allowing Adam to grow up to be a criminal.

Cast

• John Travolta as Sean Archer/Castor Troy
• Nicolas Cage as Castor Troy/Sean Archer
• Joan Allen as Dr. Eve Archer
• Alessandro Nivola as Pollux Troy
• Gina Gershon as Sasha Hassler
• Dominique Swain as Jamie Archer
• Nick Cassavetes as Dietrich Hassler
• Harve Presnell as Victor Lazarro
• Colm Feore as Dr. Malcolm Walsh
• C. C. H. Pounder as Dr. Hollis Miller
• John Carroll Lynch as Walton
• Robert Wisdom as Tito
• Thomas Jane as Burke Hicks
• James Denton as Buzz
• Margaret Cho as Wanda
• Matt Ross as Loomis
• Chris Bauer as Dubov
• Danny Masterson as Karl
• Tommy Flanagan as Leo
• Steve Hytner as Interrogating agent
• Romy Windsor as Kimberly (as Romy Walthall)
• Paul Hipp as Fitch
• Kirk Baltz as Aldo
• Max Bemis of Say Anything (band) as Altar Boy

Production

Face/Off was a spec script which writers Mike Werb and Michael Colleary tried to sell to a studio from as early as 1990. It took numerous studios, producers and rewrites before John Woo became attached several years later.^[4]

Originally the film was to be set in the far future and was to star Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone^{[citation needed]} in the lead roles. At one point John Woo considered Jean-Claude Van Damme whom he had worked with in Hard Target to play Sean Archer while Steven Seagal would play Castor Troy along with them learning each others fighting abilities.^{[citation needed]} Other pairings that was considered was that of Harrison Ford and Michael Douglas^[5] as well as Alec Baldwin and Bruce Willis,^{[citation needed]} and Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.^{[citation needed]} When the film was eventually made, Douglas was an executive producer. Werb and Colleary have cited White Heat (1949) and Seconds (1966) as influences on the plot.^[4]

John Woo was offered a chance to direct but declined unless the studio agreed to give him more creative control than he had received on his previous American films. Travolta had previously starred in Woo's Broken Arrow (Cage was later to star in another Woo film, Windtalkers). Woo set the movie in the present so he could focus on the psychological elements of the story, such as how the feud between the two men affects those close to them — such as Sasha and Adam and Archer's family.

The names Castor and Pollux come from a pair of brothers in Greek mythology that make up the Gemini constellation. The story itself, most notably the hatred between Archer and Troy, is very similar to that of Hector and Achilles, who fought against each other in the Trojan War. Additional influences may have come from the fact that the Greek and Roman god of archery, Apollo, was closely related with the city of Troy. The Archer is also a constellation and is significant because the Archer is the symbol of the Sagittarius constellation. Therefore, this symbolizes the clash between the opposing Sagittarius and Gemini constellations. The names Castor and Pollux were also chosen as names for police dogs in another 1997 film, the science fiction/horror The Relic starring Tom Sizemore.

Pollux is held at Erehwon, a prison so secret that even the inmates do not know its location. "Erehwon" is "nowhere" in reverse, an idea that also occurs in an allegorical novel by Samuel Butler.

The battle in the church, which includes doves flying around, is similar to the final confrontation in Woo's classic 1989 Hong Kong film The Killer.

Costing $80 million to make, Face/Off made heavy use of action set pieces including several violent shootouts and a boat chase while being filmed in the Los Angeles area. The boat scene at the end of the film was shot in San Diego.^[6][7]

Release

Face/Off was released in North America on June 27, 1997 and earned $23 million on its opening weekend. It went on to become the 11th highest domestic and 14th worldwide grossing film of 1997, earning a domestic total of $112,276,146 and $133,400,000 overseas for a total of worldwide gross of $245,676,146. It was a successful box office hit.^[6][8]

The Region 1 DVD of Face/Off was one of the first films to be released on the format on October 7, 1998.^[9] A 10th Anniversary Collectors Edition was released on DVD September 11, 2007 and HD DVD October 30, 2007 in the United States.^[10] The new DVD is a 2-disc set including 7 deleted scenes, an alternate ending and several featurettes.^[11]

The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in the United Kingdom on 1 October 2007 by Buena Vista, and was released in the United States on 20 May 2008 by Paramount Pictures.^[12]

Reception

Face/Off received near universal acclaim from critics and garnered high box office earnings, making it a critical and financial success. The role reversal between Travolta and Cage was a subject of praise, as were the stylized, violent action sequences. Critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times remarked that "Here, using big movie stars and asking them to play each other, Woo and his writers find a terrific counterpoint to the action scenes: All through the movie, you find yourself reinterpreting every scene as you realize the 'other' character is 'really' playing it."^[13] Rolling Stone's Peter Travers said of the film, "You may not buy the premise or the windup, but with Travolta and Cage taking comic and psychic measures of their characters and their own careers, there is no resisting Face/Off. This you gotta see."^[14] Richard Corliss of Time Magazine said that the film "isn't just a thrill ride, it's a rocket into the thrilling past, when directors could scare you with how much emotion they packed into a movie."^[15]

Some critics felt the film's violence was overkill, and that the action sequences dragged out too long. Barbara Shulgasser of the San Francisco Examiner called the movie "idiotic" and argued that "a good director would choose the best of the six ways and put it in his movie. Woo puts all six in. If you keep your eyes closed during a Woo movie and open them every six minutes, you'll see everything you need to know to have a perfectly lovely evening at the cinema."^[16]

Face/Off holds a 94% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes with 54 positive reviews out of a total 56 and a score of 82 on Metacritic with 25 reviews counted.^[17][18] The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Sound Editing at the 70th Academy Awards, but lost to Titanic. Face/Off also won the Saturn Awards for Best Directing and Writing, and the MTV Movie Awards for Best Action Scene (the speedboat chase) and Best Duo for Travolta and Cage.^[19]

Soundtrack

The Face/Off soundtrack was released by Hollywood Records on July 1, 1997, the week following the film's release.

1. "Face On" – (4:57)
2. "80 Proof Rock" – (4:29)
3. "Furniture" – (7:12)
4. "The Golden Section Derma Lift" – (3:15)
5. "This Ridiculous Chin" (– 6:51)
6. "No More Drugs For That Man" – (7:27)
7. "Hans' Loft" – (3:37)
8. "Ready For The Big Ride‚ Bubba" – (3:54)

• Orchestra Conducted By: Lucas Richman
• Orchestrated By: Bruce Fowler, Steven Fowler, Walt Fowler, Yvonne S. Moriarty, Ladd McIntosh and Lucas Richman

Additional music

Several pieces of music and songs were used in the film but not included in the soundtrack.^[21] These include:

• "Since By Man Came Death" and "Hallelujah" from oratorio 'Messiah' - Handel
• Pamina's Aria "Ach, ich fühl's" from "Die Zauberflöte" - Mozart
• "Prelude in D-flat, Op. 28, No. 15 ('Raindrop')" - Chopin
• "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" - James Brown
• "Over the Rainbow" (Harold Arlen & Yip Harburg) - Olivia Newton-John
• "Christiansands" - Tricky
• "Don't Lose Your Head" - INXS
• "Miserere Mei, Deus (VV.1-4 & 17-20)" - Gregorio Allegri

References

External links

• Face/Off at the Internet Movie Database
• Face/Off at the TCM Movie Database
• Face/Off at AllRovi
• Face/Off at Box Office Mojo
• Face/Off at Rotten Tomatoes
• Face/Off at Metacritic