I worked on this! We made all the face/off effects. Duplicate bodies for Travolta and Cage. I specifically did the mechanical elements underneath the skin that makes them seem alive and asleep. Good times. The painters and hair people worked for weeks making them look perfect.
True story time, Cage and Travolta weren't the originally intended stars for this and when they cast them both there were concerns that the two actors wouldn't get along. Both have their famous and infamous on-set stories to contend with but they got along REALLY well and started bonding over each others quirks and film roles within minutes of being together. This amazing chemistry really carried this movie as you can tell they're both having an absolute blast in both of them getting to play the hero AND the villain.
I read a great quote from Travolta, that he showed up on set his first day, intending to talk to Cage about their characters' history, mannerisms, what they would take from each others' performances - and watched Cage shoot the choir scene, and said, "Oh, THAT'S how we're gonna do it. Ok, then."
Two of the greatest over-actors get to spend the length of a film pretending to be the other guy…. How anyone isn’t entertained by this premise, I’ll never understand.
If I remember correctly, Travolta thought this was going to be a "phone it in, throw it away movie" that would make a few bucks and be totally forgotten. But when he arrived on set and saw some dailies of Cage's early scenes, he literally said, "OK - I guess we're actually going all out on this one." Cage's lunacy really ramped up Travolta's performance.
@@jp3813 It's not my claim - Travolta said that himself in an interview. Whether or not he was embellishing is for any individual to decide. Since the premise was so silly, I can totally see him thinking that going in.
@@cliffendicott7832 Well, you said "if I remember correctly". So i was just proposing the possibility that he didn't say that exactly, or at least meant it differently.
I like how the poster shows the actors playing the characters after the switch. That’s why Cage looks so sympathetic around the eyes and Travolta looks evil
I don't know... Cage's pupils are super dilated, despite the bright studio light being reflected (all of which could be post-production). So whichever character he is, he's high as a kite!
This is one of those movie premises where I'm sure everyone in Hollywood shot it down for being too ridiculous, but we the audience were like, "I don't care. I will grant you the ridiculousness. I just want to see what happens."
The screenplay was written as SciFi set in the future, but when Woo got offered the job as director he convinced the producers to spend the money on the action scenes, rather than on creating a convincing SciFi setting (with lots of VFX).
I think this movie doesn't get enough credit for what the actors had to do to play their roles. You had to know and understand the other character well enough to know how they would play your original character. It's so very interesting.
YES, you just completed one of the best runs of any actor ever: The Rock, Con Air and Face/Off were filmed and released in a single year (from mid 1996 to mid 1997) and after that Nic got superstar status. It remains to this day an impressive achievement in many ways specially for the action genre. Also, i think you are the only reactors that completed this run in chronological order (not that it matters but it is cool).
Yeah, this run was what made me a Nic cage fan. I saw him as this action star first, then as a serious actor 😆 Another great run was Mel Gibson. He is the only actor who on a 1 year run, had 3 movies come out and make +100m at the box office. They were all in different genres as well. He was on top of the world and then he went on his famous drunken rant 🤦♂️ The Patriot (epic, action Drama) Chicken Run (stop motion comedy) What Women Want (chick flick comedy) Orlando Bloom had a crazy run also with Black Hawk Down, LOTR Trilogy and Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy
Fun fact: The song Cage keeps singing, 🎶 Ready, ready for the big ride baby 🎶 Cage made it up on the spot and everyone on the set was worried about the copyright. Cage assured them he made it up on the spot.
John Travolta trying his best to outcrazy over-the-top actor Nicolas Cage himself. Amazing stuff right there! Also, in this movie, the studio basically told John Woo, "You know what? It's all yours, you have ALL the control." This movie really is an example of why studios should give the directors more creative control. Well, the good directors.
Less than 8 years after this film released, the first partial face transplant took place in France in 2005. The patient was Isabelle Dinoire (1967-2016).
Don't worry George. Learning that Rocky IV is about a US USSR fight or that Face/Off is about trading faces isn't a spoiler. I mean it's heavily advertised as the premise of the films.
T2 was heavily advertised as "this time he's the good guy", but it was _intended_ to be a Big Reveal. Film and TV trailers spoil crap _all_ the time, which is why I hardly ever watch them anymore.
This movie is over the top ridiculous, but it makes me genuinely love the characters. There are also a lot of little things I love about the writing, such as how important the wife's role is later in the film and how her treatment at the hands of Troy is taken seriously. I love showing this movie to friends who have no idea about the concept and then seeing the ARE YOU SERIOUS??? reaction when they put the pieces together.
This is John Woo's 3rd Hollywood film after Hard Target (1993) & Broken Arrow (1996), which also stars Travolta. I believe this is Cage's first time (edit: apparently not) playing a villain, even though he spends most of the runtime playing the hero. Other famous director trademarks I know are: Spielberg = spheres/circles, Hitchcock = blondes, Nolan = drowning, Shyamalan = twists, Abrams = lens flare, De Palma = POV shots, Zemeckis = lightning, Burton = gothic atmosphere, Raimi = kinetic camerawork, Chan = fight scene props, etc...
I thought Spielberg's "trademark" is a shooting star, he caught one on film naturally in Jaws and ever since he's added one to most (all?) of his movies using special effects.
Nicolas Cage played the bad guy in the movie, Kiss Of Death (1995), opposite to David Caruso from the TV series CSI: Miami. Cage also sports a great goatee.
Wes Anderson is known for trying to have symmetry in a lot of his shots. And Sofia Coppola always has her characters looking out windows, contemplating things.
Stanley Kubrick has the Kubrick Stare. Think Jack Nicholson in The Shining or Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. He didn't invent it - it's also the final shot of Psycho for instance - but he sure loved to use it.
I am so happy that Simone laughed at "Sasha, what the fuck are you doing here?" as that is my single favorite line delivery from John Travolta across his entire filmography.
I'm sorry, but Simone's face when Cage said the infamous "I can eat a peach for hours" was just amazing lol and I know some people say some of Cage's other movies have an even more unhinged performance, but this one is just the top of the Cage mountain of insanity acting for me. And the fact that Travolta basically pulled off doing a Cage impression and vice versa is just amazing for a crazy premise of a movie plot lol
Remember, everything Woo picked up about slow motion he got from Sam Peckinpah (check the opening and ending scenes of the Wild Bunch (1969), or almost anything else he did.
George: "I'm fairly sure that's not how that works, there's connective tissue-" No, George. If you pull the skin on your nose hard you will notice that your face will sort of tent out from your head and will be all loose and hang down and you won't be able to see out your eyes anymore because your forehead will sort of hang down and block it. That's totally how it works.
I remember Sharon Stone going on David Letterman and exclaiming, "Wow! When they say Face/Off they really mean face off. I mean literally FACE . . . OFF!" Letterman was like, "Yeah, okay, I get it."
Being 16 and seeing this movie on the big screen, this was the coolest shit back then and it aged beautifully. Great dumb action cinema. And this is the one that brought the slomo dove scene to america.
Something I love about this movie, which I feel also applies to The Fifth Element, is that they both feel like live action cartoons. Ridiculous premises and some over the top/hammy performances that result in a wild, fun ride.
I also heard that initially, Nic Cage wasn't interested in playing another villain. However, when he found that he'd be the hero for most of the film, he agreed to it...
I think John Woo shared a visual style with Tony Scott. They worked with the same editor, same composer, and a few of the same actors. While Woo is famous for the slow motion doves, Scott was known for showing white curtains blowing in bedroom scenes in a ton of his films with the lighting giving either a blue, orange, or pink tint.
Actually what's impressive about his performance in this movie is not him as an unhinged lunatic, which he's done a thousand times, but his scenes where he's playing Travolta's character. Travota is way harder to imitate than Cage. Travolta himself says that Cage had the much tougher acting assignment.
It's really fascinating how much of his career Cage has spent exploring one emotion - wild screaming. After a couple of movies I noticed that every time he went into a full screaming fit, he did it DIFFERENTLY, in a way that fit this particular character and these particular circumstances. A lot of actors can really capture subtle nuances of quiet emotion, but Cage is the only one I can think of who can capture subtle nuances at the top of his lungs.
@@joemason6319 It's actually more fascinating how you don't know anything about Nicolas Cage's career, yet are commenting as if you do! Your problem? You have little boy tastes and probably only see him in dopey "action" movies like this one. Just in the 80s alone, he had a wide range of character portrayals and if there's any "one thing" that he's spent exploring, it's idiosyncratic behavior, not "wild screaming". Poor Joe, a swing and a miss, pal!
@@joemason6319 PS: Dopey Joe, he's not doing much "wild screaming" in this movie, is he? The "wild screaming" comes from John Travolta acting like Nick Cage; Nicolas Cage spends most of the time NOT screaming! He spends it imitating John Travolta........which is the MUCH harder acting job, doofus!
Travolta's playing as Cage was so sublime. Another American John Woo is Broken Arrow, which was before this movie, also with Travolta. And Hard Target with Jean Claude Van Damme
The charm of this movie is how over the top, preposterous, and melodramatic it is. Just like his Hong Kong movies but with a bigger budget and American actors.
"Shoot the tires of the plane!" Fun fact for Simone: in a very general sense, planes can take off with one or two tires deflated (it's not optimal, it can cause a bad situation; but it has happened). Depending on the airplane, each landing gear "leg" has two tires: one in the outside and one on the inside, making it more difficult to just shoot them both in rapid succession. In some cases, the location of the landing gear complicates even more this: in some cases, the landing gear door opens outwards, creating an accidental shield for the wheels, or (in the case of the film's plane, a Lockheed L-1329), the landing gear is directly below the wings (making the angle for a direct shoot even more complicated). Thus, destroying an engine or two is a safer bet to stop an airplane from taking off (keep in mind one thing: that regularly has to be done below a speed called V1 or "decision speed"; if the plane is going faster, the pilot may be commited to take off, no matter what, because the plane now is going too fast to stop inside the runway, or even inside the airport; the procedure recommends to lift off, circle around and make an emergency landing in order to use all the runway available). So, there you have it; if you ever need to stop a plane, cut the epic chase short and destroy the engines first :P. "This is outrageous... XD" At the time, face transplants were being researched, but still were just a theory, given the complexity mentioned by George (as mentioned in other comments, they were eventually figured out as technology and tools could handle all the delicate elements needed to connect and reconnect all the muscles needed to have facial movement). This, on a story telling aspect, opens an interesting question: true, films can be more enjoyable when grounded in tangible reality... But films are also a show so... shouldn't we just take some partially grounded premise and enjoy the ride, more often than not? The film is enjoyable not because it's 100% scientifically accurate and it explains every single aspect of a face transplant and the ridiculous body transformation both characters have to take to have the average complexion of the other; it's a blast because it has great casting, good performances, the actors seemingly had fun, everything explodes with minimal touch and John Woo had his doves. Back in the day, the possibility existed and was being researched, but the film simply said "the hell, we are not going to provide accurate answers, when medical science still doesn't know how to pull this trick"; and an enjoyable ride was made. Anyway: nice reaction and see you in the next one.
It's been normalized now, but in the '90s teenagers having a lot of makeup and face piercings was a lot less common, and usually a sign that the kid was acting out or being rebellious in some way. In this case, the point wasn't that the makeup/piercings were extreme, so much as that they weren't normal for Jamie, and were her way of dealing with her trauma at losing her brother and her difficult home life. Hence why we don't see them at the end, because she's comfortable with being her true self again.
Yeah, as awesome as both actors were, I was in awe of how perfectly Travolta nailed Cage's personality, mannerisms, and body language. In the prison scene between Troy and his brother, it felt like I was literally listening to Cage even though it was actually Travolta mimicking him! lol But it never felt like mimickry. I personally think this is is one of Travolta's top 3 film performances along with Blow Out and Pulp Fiction. Cage was of course superb as well. Also, this film is easily John Woo's best American movie, imo.
There are only a few movies that are pure 90s like this film is. To the point there are 90s films all connected in the same universe. The common traits are quirky, fashionable, slightly unrealistic science, and intelligent drama.
This film is were Nic Cage started showing his craziness. This and Con Air are my favourite movies of his. Honorable mention Snake Eyes, Gone in Sixty Seconds, and The Rock.
I don't know if it was intended at the time, but what the peach emoji is used for now gives me a whole new meaning to "I could eat a peach for hours". 🍑
The premise for this movie is ridiculous....and I absolutely love it!! Cage and Travolta were outstanding, and the entire cast was great. Simone, I always wondered the same thing about how "Castor" got to shore after his prison break. But George, you nailed it with your observation of hey, faces were swapped - pretty sure logic is out the window. 😆
George: "Sorry ... I kinduv know the premise" Everyone who remembers the tv trailers that came out in the weeks before this hit theaters: "S'alright, George ... we ALL did." The commercials were unavoidable on MTV, at the time.
I was reminded about Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck... There's a short in which Bugs imitates Daffy and Daffy imitates Bugs... the same actor doing both characters imitating the each other and it came out very good, Mel Blanc was a great actor :)
The face change was either a selling point or widely known at least. I watched this movie in theaters as a 13 years old (theaters were very loose with the age restrictions back then hahahahaha) and i knew that was the main point of the movie but it didnt matter for my enjoyment. Im not sure if it was in the trailers or people just talked about it openly.
My favorite part of this movie is how each actor is trying to portray the other and it is just hilarious to see Travolta go full Cage. That and the face waterfalls of course (shout out to How Did This Get Made?)
Lovely reaction - "I could listen to trivia all day" - immortal words lol - the 90s saw a huge influence of recent HK cinema on Hollywood, midwifed by emerging indie adherents like Tarantino, so when John Woo arrived, it was sort of like Hollywood had been waiting for him, and this is the movie that most successfully translates his bizarre sentimental-kinetic HK vibe into Hollywood terms - and I just realized the 00s equivalent of this would be The Departed, another HK import w exchanging doppelganger adversaries - is this some kind of Yin Yang thing that we just can't get enough of over here lol - the ultimate sci fi take on twins is Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, which is also his masterpiece, w Irons giving one (or two) of the top 5 performances ever committed to film - another lovely take is Cage's own Adaptation - another sort of equivalent here is a particular sort of disguise film that calls attention to and celebrates the art of acting itself - the best aspect of this film is our joy in watching them enacting their impersonations, acting out these roles, savoring the layers and nuances; we enjoy their display of virtuosity the way we might thrill at the supple intricacy of 2 master basketball players, and the outrageousness of the movie somehow heightens this aspect that we're all just coasting together w the 2 actors on the giddy fun of it all - the 80s equivalent of that might be Tootsie - a case could be made for Face/Off as the most brilliantly cloying and hamfisted film ever made - maybe the only film that can even be described that way, at least the only American one - it feels more like a tour de force HK actioner from the 80s
Watching Nic Cage act like John Travolta acting like Nic Cage is almost as hilarious as watching anyone, let alone Simone, start watching this without previously knowing the main premise..
I just watched the best Nic Cage movie the other day. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans. Its sooo fucking funny. The cast is stacked, and Cage's performance is so wild. He's basically a piece of shit cop, and he's got a messed up back, so his left shoulder is always higher than his other one. I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a wild Nic Cage performance.
31:10 From the top of my head: Nolan, showing a character from the back while slowly zooming in. Snyder, a character looking into the distance while the camera pans across the horizon to show the action. Anderson, symmetry. So much symmetry. Villeneuve, gigantic landscape shots.
This is, by far, John Woo's best American made movie. If you want to see his best movie ever, watch Hard Boiled or The Killer. Both were made in Hong Kong prior to his American debut.
John Woo and Chow Yun Fat (star of "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled") were huge in Asia and had a cult following in the west (which included Samuel L. Jackson who mentioned them when he told David Letterman that he liked going to theaters in Chinatown to watch Hong Kong action movies), but "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled" were the movies that started getting them known to mainstream American audiences. They and "A Better Tomorrow" are still my favorite John Woo movies.
I've read alot of movie scripts in my time, the early drafts of this were very different. This movie was, and still rightly so is, loved. Such a good film. I remember I wask sixteen turning 17 as this came out in 97, but younger people don't realize when VHS were released it a year for a film to transition from cinema to home release and me and my mate got our other mates mum to rent this out for us. I had already seen IT and scream and mimic by that point so this wouldnt faze me. But it was an 18 and I had only just turned 16. My dad found out and went ballistic. But already watched it so what was done was done. Face off was also one of the first DVDs to ever be released. At that point in their careers, Cage had won an Oscar two years prior and Pulp Fiction had saved and revitalized Travolta's career. So they were truly becoming real forces in Hollywood. So getting them together was a big deal and Travolta knew how Woo working having working with him in Woos first American features, the flawed in ultimately enjoyable, Broken Arrow, 1995, with Christian Slater.
This movie is so ridiculous yet such a blast. This seems like a lost art in Hollywood, where everything needs to be serious nowadays, no matter how outlandish it is. But it's exactly what made so many action flicks in the 80s and 90s so great.
Fantastic! When George said Nic Cage is playing John Travolta playing Nic Cage and vice versa that was perfect. Understanding how the actors took their acting to another level.
I saw it in the theater as a teen! It’s incredible how crazy, good & bad, it is. The Mets parts were great like Travolta making fun of his own chin…and Danny Masterson “acting” like himself. The only thing I can’t stand is the cringey face swipe move. It drives me crazy how corny it is. Great review, as always. Thanks!
RE: Other directors "signature" shots: Kubrik loved one-point perspective; Wes Anderson loves symmetry and a distinct colour palette; the dolly zoom is sometimes known as the Hitchcock Zoom for a reason; Tarantino (in addition to his foot thing) loves to use POV shots from inside a car's boot/trunk. There are lots more examples.
This is one of my favorite movies. I watched it so much as a kid I could recite the entire thing. One of those movies I watch in my head while working.
When Simone said about Hell A, I was reminded of the song “Hell, CA., Pop. 4” by Love/Hate. I hadn’t known that Hell, California is an actual place which might have had that actual population when the song was written.
There's a movie called Switchback that came out a little while after this, and I used to joke that it was the sequel. As an actor, I'm friends with Dominique Swain, who played the daughter. We used to play Words With Friends all the time, and she would kick my butt. If you like this sort of dynamic with identity, you should watch Darkman. You already saw Mission Impossible, or else I'd recommend that too.
"Both actors...I could see them in both roles"
Good news!
“Whys it exploding??”
The 90’s, that’s why lol
I worked on this! We made all the face/off effects. Duplicate bodies for Travolta and Cage. I specifically did the mechanical elements underneath the skin that makes them seem alive and asleep. Good times. The painters and hair people worked for weeks making them look perfect.
I saw the features on my bluray about this movie. the work in the prosthetics and doubles are amazing.
@@ClanMcDuck woow that's cool to read your comment. Great job! It's one of my favorite action movie.
"I'm fairly certain that's now how that works."
How do you know, George? Have you ever taken your face......OFF???
In almost every thumbnail.....
@@clevelandcbi Well played.
I find myself rolling my eyes at him a lot lol
The adoption at the end is wild.
"His mother died protecting me, thinking I am the father of her child, and I killed his dad. Anyway..."
"And his dad killed my son."
True story time, Cage and Travolta weren't the originally intended stars for this and when they cast them both there were concerns that the two actors wouldn't get along. Both have their famous and infamous on-set stories to contend with but they got along REALLY well and started bonding over each others quirks and film roles within minutes of being together. This amazing chemistry really carried this movie as you can tell they're both having an absolute blast in both of them getting to play the hero AND the villain.
I read a great quote from Travolta, that he showed up on set his first day, intending to talk to Cage about their characters' history, mannerisms, what they would take from each others' performances - and watched Cage shoot the choir scene, and said, "Oh, THAT'S how we're gonna do it. Ok, then."
@@joemason6319lol sounds about right. A NicCageRage is worth a thousand words when it comes to character description
Two of the greatest over-actors get to spend the length of a film pretending to be the other guy….
How anyone isn’t entertained by this premise, I’ll never understand.
I thought it was phenomenal the first time I saw it, still love it!
TRUE STORY: Castor Troy's evil bald buddy directed The Notebook 😂😂😂
"I could listen to trivia for hours." 🤣 🤣 🤣 Good one, Simone!
If I remember correctly, Travolta thought this was going to be a "phone it in, throw it away movie" that would make a few bucks and be totally forgotten. But when he arrived on set and saw some dailies of Cage's early scenes, he literally said, "OK - I guess we're actually going all out on this one." Cage's lunacy really ramped up Travolta's performance.
I can't think of a better Travolta performance, so it sure worked for him. Too bad it didn't happen on every project!
@@bigdream_dreambig he was pretty good in pulp fiction
Travolta definitely didn't phone it in for John Woo's Broken Arrow. Hence, I highly doubt that he would've in their 2nd film together.
@@jp3813 It's not my claim - Travolta said that himself in an interview. Whether or not he was embellishing is for any individual to decide. Since the premise was so silly, I can totally see him thinking that going in.
@@cliffendicott7832 Well, you said "if I remember correctly". So i was just proposing the possibility that he didn't say that exactly, or at least meant it differently.
I like how the poster shows the actors playing the characters after the switch. That’s why Cage looks so sympathetic around the eyes and Travolta looks evil
Yeah, I thought Simone's reading of their expressions in the video intro was way off. I guess she was influenced by their previous roles.
I don't know... Cage's pupils are super dilated, despite the bright studio light being reflected (all of which could be post-production). So whichever character he is, he's high as a kite!
In the beginning when you asked where the doves were, I found myself saying “wait George, just wait.”
Same
Me too 😂😂😂
I thought the same
This is one of those movie premises where I'm sure everyone in Hollywood shot it down for being too ridiculous, but we the audience were like, "I don't care. I will grant you the ridiculousness. I just want to see what happens."
The screenplay was written as SciFi set in the future, but when Woo got offered the job as director he convinced the producers to spend the money on the action scenes, rather than on creating a convincing SciFi setting (with lots of VFX).
Some people couldn't handle the ridiculousness, but that's the minority.
I think this movie doesn't get enough credit for what the actors had to do to play their roles. You had to know and understand the other character well enough to know how they would play your original character. It's so very interesting.
Plus play the original character pretending to be the other character for the people around them
[sees the thumbnail]
"HALLELUJAH!!!"
"Heart attacks... famously causes external chest bruising".
No... but chest compressions do.
'is it a hockey movie' is that the most Canadian thing ever said about Face Off? :)
Cassie from Popcorn in Bed made the same assumption about a year ago. She is also Canadian.
I'm sorry, but we're only willing to accept "Face/Off" or "Face...............Off"
YES, you just completed one of the best runs of any actor ever: The Rock, Con Air and Face/Off were filmed and released in a single year (from mid 1996 to mid 1997) and after that Nic got superstar status. It remains to this day an impressive achievement in many ways specially for the action genre. Also, i think you are the only reactors that completed this run in chronological order (not that it matters but it is cool).
Yeah, this run was what made me a Nic cage fan. I saw him as this action star first, then as a serious actor 😆
Another great run was Mel Gibson. He is the only actor who on a 1 year run, had 3 movies come out and make +100m at the box office. They were all in different genres as well. He was on top of the world and then he went on his famous drunken rant 🤦♂️
The Patriot (epic, action Drama)
Chicken Run (stop motion comedy)
What Women Want (chick flick comedy)
Orlando Bloom had a crazy run also with Black Hawk Down, LOTR Trilogy and Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy
did you forget jim carrey in 1994?
@@saagisharon8595 Which 1994 Jim Carrey action movie did you want them to include?
They should watch Broken Arrow. John Travolta and Christian Slater. Another over the top action film from early 1996, also by John Woo!
@@gothnatewas thinking the same! Great shout!
14:33 Thomas Jane, the Punisher himself, in a completely unrecognizable role.
Wait what!? Das the beratna Detective Miller que?
WAIT, WHAT?
OMG !!
Holy crap.
Si vis pacem, para bellum!
Damn I never caught that but going to that mark it's clear as day lmao
"No more drugs for that man."
Maybe my favorite line from the movie. Nick Cassavetes' delivery of it is great. My other favorite is "no daughter of mine would shoot so wide!"
Words to live by. He gave up the drug life and directed The Notebook.
"Is that Danny Masterson. . . oh, playing himself." Jesus George :D Never change.
"No more drugs for that man..." Top 5 .most quoted lines of all time in my circles.
Oh man, the glory days of Travolta as the action villain. Gotta watch Broken Arrow!
Fun fact: The song Cage keeps singing, 🎶 Ready, ready for the big ride baby 🎶 Cage made it up on the spot and everyone on the set was worried about the copyright. Cage assured them he made it up on the spot.
That's awesome.
So glad George called out Danny masterson and knew doves were coming
“Peach. I could eat a peach for hours.” 👌🏾
Most memorable line in the movie.
MMmmm 🍑🍑🍑
John Travolta trying his best to outcrazy over-the-top actor Nicolas Cage himself. Amazing stuff right there!
Also, in this movie, the studio basically told John Woo, "You know what? It's all yours, you have ALL the control." This movie really is an example of why studios should give the directors more creative control. Well, the good directors.
And bad too, we need to take the weeds out.
@@yotuel9064no, I want to see bad directors given even more creative control. That’s how we got such classics as Transformers, and the room.
yea not so fast buddy you, this is comment theft! look at the first two comments of OctoKrools face/off reaction
@@watts18269 That's what I said. More creative control to not only the good directectors but also the bad. The rise or crash.
Giving directors extreme creative control is how we got Citizens Kane.
Less than 8 years after this film released, the first partial face transplant took place in France in 2005. The patient was Isabelle Dinoire (1967-2016).
I forgot Danny Masterson was in this movie... being himself. Jesus that was a whiplash.
yep
To be fair, both he and John Travolta are Scientologists.
My thoughts exactly. 😬
Assaulting the daughter of the most famous FBI agent in history right outside their home. Bravo!
Don't worry George. Learning that Rocky IV is about a US USSR fight or that Face/Off is about trading faces isn't a spoiler. I mean it's heavily advertised as the premise of the films.
"Trading Faces" would be a great film title
T2 was heavily advertised as "this time he's the good guy", but it was _intended_ to be a Big Reveal. Film and TV trailers spoil crap _all_ the time, which is why I hardly ever watch them anymore.
Whoa whoa whoa… you mean to tell me Toy Story isnt a story about toys 😟
This movie is over the top ridiculous, but it makes me genuinely love the characters. There are also a lot of little things I love about the writing, such as how important the wife's role is later in the film and how her treatment at the hands of Troy is taken seriously. I love showing this movie to friends who have no idea about the concept and then seeing the ARE YOU SERIOUS??? reaction when they put the pieces together.
More than explosions I'd say Michael Bay's signature is his Hero Shot, telephoto lens moving around the subject from below.
"The scar I don't need it anymore, got myself a replacement kid, it's all good."
😂😂😂
29:00 in context of all the outlandish science in this film, that portrayal of a blood group test is shockingly accurate.
"Take his face...off...". Now that line will stay with you forever.
"I could listen to trivia for hours" is an absolutely genius line.
They both do such a good job acting as the other character acting as themselves
In The Rock, Cage says he drives a beige Volvo. In this one, he steals a beige Volvo.
This is John Woo's 3rd Hollywood film after Hard Target (1993) & Broken Arrow (1996), which also stars Travolta. I believe this is Cage's first time (edit: apparently not) playing a villain, even though he spends most of the runtime playing the hero. Other famous director trademarks I know are: Spielberg = spheres/circles, Hitchcock = blondes, Nolan = drowning, Shyamalan = twists, Abrams = lens flare, De Palma = POV shots, Zemeckis = lightning, Burton = gothic atmosphere, Raimi = kinetic camerawork, Chan = fight scene props, etc...
Demme = tight close ups, Scorsese = jump cuts/montage/freeze frame
I thought Spielberg's "trademark" is a shooting star, he caught one on film naturally in Jaws and ever since he's added one to most (all?) of his movies using special effects.
I think Nolan's trademark is "time".
Nicolas Cage played the bad guy in the movie, Kiss Of Death (1995), opposite to David Caruso from the TV series CSI: Miami. Cage also sports a great goatee.
Filmmakers can have multiple trademarks. Other well-known ones from Woo include slow motion, dual wielding, Mexican standoffs, etc...
Castor and Pollux were twins from Greek mythology. Troy is the famous ancient city. Archer is a reference to Apollo or possibly Artemis.
1:33 "I really like this casting already, because both actors, I can see them in both roles."
And you WILL see them in both roles!
Wes Anderson is known for trying to have symmetry in a lot of his shots. And Sofia Coppola always has her characters looking out windows, contemplating things.
Stanley Kubrick has the Kubrick Stare. Think Jack Nicholson in The Shining or Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange. He didn't invent it - it's also the final shot of Psycho for instance - but he sure loved to use it.
Jonathan Demme had close ups of actors looking directly into the camera.
Steven Spielberg has a thing for intense lighting in his films
Sergio Leone used both extreme close ups and wide shots of scenery.
Lucio Fulci with this close-up shots of eye destruction in one manner or another.
Another director signature: Sam Raimi puts the car from Evil Dead in every movie he directs.
IIRC, the car actualy belongs to him, and was used for "Evil Dead" due to a low budget.
I am so happy that Simone laughed at "Sasha, what the fuck are you doing here?" as that is my single favorite line delivery from John Travolta across his entire filmography.
John Woo is a treasure when it comes to action goodness.
20:30 - this moment requires both Troy and Archer havin the same "tool".
The face off was a face off and everything else on the body alterated even down to the smallest things.
@@RexRegisPeter So they switched Sean Archer's penis with Castor Troy's?
I'm sorry, but Simone's face when Cage said the infamous "I can eat a peach for hours" was just amazing lol and I know some people say some of Cage's other movies have an even more unhinged performance, but this one is just the top of the Cage mountain of insanity acting for me. And the fact that Travolta basically pulled off doing a Cage impression and vice versa is just amazing for a crazy premise of a movie plot lol
Remember, everything Woo picked up about slow motion he got from Sam Peckinpah (check the opening and ending scenes of the Wild Bunch (1969), or almost anything else he did.
George: "I'm fairly sure that's not how that works, there's connective tissue-" No, George. If you pull the skin on your nose hard you will notice that your face will sort of tent out from your head and will be all loose and hang down and you won't be able to see out your eyes anymore because your forehead will sort of hang down and block it. That's totally how it works.
This is a wildly underrated comment.
The guy that played Dietrich also directed "The Notebook".
You really gotta remember the number 1 rule in movies. Sometimes cool works better then logic, always remember that lol
This movie was one of five that my college roommate and I had on hand back in 2000. Every now and then, we’ll just text each other a quote to say hi.
I remember Sharon Stone going on David Letterman and exclaiming, "Wow! When they say Face/Off they really mean face off. I mean literally FACE . . . OFF!" Letterman was like, "Yeah, okay, I get it."
Being 16 and seeing this movie on the big screen, this was the coolest shit back then and it aged beautifully. Great dumb action cinema. And this is the one that brought the slomo dove scene to america.
The trailers for the movie explains fully that they switch faces. That's not a big reveal, we all went to the theater knowing that part.
Something I love about this movie, which I feel also applies to The Fifth Element, is that they both feel like live action cartoons. Ridiculous premises and some over the top/hammy performances that result in a wild, fun ride.
I also heard that initially, Nic Cage wasn't interested in playing another villain. However, when he found that he'd be the hero for most of the film, he agreed to it...
I think John Woo shared a visual style with Tony Scott. They worked with the same editor, same composer, and a few of the same actors. While Woo is famous for the slow motion doves, Scott was known for showing white curtains blowing in bedroom scenes in a ton of his films with the lighting giving either a blue, orange, or pink tint.
Nick cage is one of the greatest actors ever and this is a perfect example of his range him just playing a completely unhinged lunatic 😂
Actually what's impressive about his performance in this movie is not him as an unhinged lunatic, which he's done a thousand times, but his scenes where he's playing Travolta's character. Travota is way harder to imitate than Cage. Travolta himself says that Cage had the much tougher acting assignment.
It's really fascinating how much of his career Cage has spent exploring one emotion - wild screaming. After a couple of movies I noticed that every time he went into a full screaming fit, he did it DIFFERENTLY, in a way that fit this particular character and these particular circumstances. A lot of actors can really capture subtle nuances of quiet emotion, but Cage is the only one I can think of who can capture subtle nuances at the top of his lungs.
@@joemason6319 It's actually more fascinating how you don't know anything about Nicolas Cage's career, yet are commenting as if you do! Your problem? You have little boy tastes and probably only see him in dopey "action" movies like this one. Just in the 80s alone, he had a wide range of character portrayals and if there's any "one thing" that he's spent exploring, it's idiosyncratic behavior, not "wild screaming". Poor Joe, a swing and a miss, pal!
@@joemason6319 PS: Dopey Joe, he's not doing much "wild screaming" in this movie, is he? The "wild screaming" comes from John Travolta acting like Nick Cage; Nicolas Cage spends most of the time NOT screaming! He spends it imitating John Travolta........which is the MUCH harder acting job, doofus!
Michael Mann's signature is the circling shot with the main characters rising up and seeing them in semi silhouette
Travolta's playing as Cage was so sublime.
Another American John Woo is Broken Arrow, which was before this movie, also with Travolta.
And Hard Target with Jean Claude Van Damme
Nicolás Cage is an actor that we will never understand but we will not stop watching his films
We are all but insects in Nicolas Cage's world.
The charm of this movie is how over the top, preposterous, and melodramatic it is. Just like his Hong Kong movies but with a bigger budget and American actors.
7:58 laughing at that 90s reveal of OMG PIERCINGS AND EYE LINER WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR DAUGHTER
"Shoot the tires of the plane!"
Fun fact for Simone: in a very general sense, planes can take off with one or two tires deflated (it's not optimal, it can cause a bad situation; but it has happened). Depending on the airplane, each landing gear "leg" has two tires: one in the outside and one on the inside, making it more difficult to just shoot them both in rapid succession. In some cases, the location of the landing gear complicates even more this: in some cases, the landing gear door opens outwards, creating an accidental shield for the wheels, or (in the case of the film's plane, a Lockheed L-1329), the landing gear is directly below the wings (making the angle for a direct shoot even more complicated).
Thus, destroying an engine or two is a safer bet to stop an airplane from taking off (keep in mind one thing: that regularly has to be done below a speed called V1 or "decision speed"; if the plane is going faster, the pilot may be commited to take off, no matter what, because the plane now is going too fast to stop inside the runway, or even inside the airport; the procedure recommends to lift off, circle around and make an emergency landing in order to use all the runway available).
So, there you have it; if you ever need to stop a plane, cut the epic chase short and destroy the engines first :P.
"This is outrageous... XD"
At the time, face transplants were being researched, but still were just a theory, given the complexity mentioned by George (as mentioned in other comments, they were eventually figured out as technology and tools could handle all the delicate elements needed to connect and reconnect all the muscles needed to have facial movement). This, on a story telling aspect, opens an interesting question: true, films can be more enjoyable when grounded in tangible reality...
But films are also a show so... shouldn't we just take some partially grounded premise and enjoy the ride, more often than not? The film is enjoyable not because it's 100% scientifically accurate and it explains every single aspect of a face transplant and the ridiculous body transformation both characters have to take to have the average complexion of the other; it's a blast because it has great casting, good performances, the actors seemingly had fun, everything explodes with minimal touch and John Woo had his doves. Back in the day, the possibility existed and was being researched, but the film simply said "the hell, we are not going to provide accurate answers, when medical science still doesn't know how to pull this trick"; and an enjoyable ride was made.
Anyway: nice reaction and see you in the next one.
It's been normalized now, but in the '90s teenagers having a lot of makeup and face piercings was a lot less common, and usually a sign that the kid was acting out or being rebellious in some way. In this case, the point wasn't that the makeup/piercings were extreme, so much as that they weren't normal for Jamie, and were her way of dealing with her trauma at losing her brother and her difficult home life. Hence why we don't see them at the end, because she's comfortable with being her true self again.
Yeah, as awesome as both actors were, I was in awe of how perfectly Travolta nailed Cage's personality, mannerisms, and body language. In the prison scene between Troy and his brother, it felt like I was literally listening to Cage even though it was actually Travolta mimicking him! lol But it never felt like mimickry. I personally think this is is one of Travolta's top 3 film performances along with Blow Out and Pulp Fiction. Cage was of course superb as well. Also, this film is easily John Woo's best American movie, imo.
I’m sorry Simone but that was the most Canadian thing I can think of when the first time you hear face off you think hockey
Both Nicolas Travolta and John Cage were excellent in this.
There are only a few movies that are pure 90s like this film is. To the point there are 90s films all connected in the same universe. The common traits are quirky, fashionable, slightly unrealistic science, and intelligent drama.
I'm glad you recognized Bunny Colvin, but you missed Frank Sabotka. He was the prisoner that helped Nic escape.
This film is were Nic Cage started showing his craziness. This and Con Air are my favourite movies of his. Honorable mention Snake Eyes, Gone in Sixty Seconds, and The Rock.
I was severely disappointed with Snake Eyes, but loved the rest. I'm a big Gary Sinise fan, so I thought I'd love that one.
Nic Cage was already crazy in the 80s. Go watch Birdy, Peggy Sue and Vampire's Kiss
I don't know if it was intended at the time, but what the peach emoji is used for now gives me a whole new meaning to "I could eat a peach for hours". 🍑
Wait, you think he was talking about an actual peach in that scene?
@@sumelar When the movie came out in 1997, I was a kid. So, ya. I thought he was talking about an actual peach. 😇
The premise for this movie is ridiculous....and I absolutely love it!! Cage and Travolta were outstanding, and the entire cast was great.
Simone, I always wondered the same thing about how "Castor" got to shore after his prison break. But George, you nailed it with your observation of hey, faces were swapped - pretty sure logic is out the window. 😆
John Travolta playing Nicholas Cage playing John Travolta vis-à-vis Nicholas Cage playing John Travolta playing Nicholas Cage.
Just perfect
"I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude"
Btw, the bald guy directed The Notebook (2004)
Loved him in The Wraith.
" Looks like ill be watching Cinebinge for..THE NEXT HUNDRED YEEEAARSSS!!!" 😂
George: "Sorry ... I kinduv know the premise"
Everyone who remembers the tv trailers that came out in the weeks before this hit theaters: "S'alright, George ... we ALL did."
The commercials were unavoidable on MTV, at the time.
"It's the Zodiac killer..." I prefer to think of him as Norm Gunderson.
Always. JCL is forever a nice guy in my head.
@@jsharp3165, Yes, back from Drew Carey days.
7:19 Simone, you've seen The Rock and Con Air. You should be used to Nic Cage being "action-y" by now.
I was reminded about Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck... There's a short in which Bugs imitates Daffy and Daffy imitates Bugs... the same actor doing both characters imitating the each other and it came out very good, Mel Blanc was a great actor :)
The face change was either a selling point or widely known at least. I watched this movie in theaters as a 13 years old (theaters were very loose with the age restrictions back then hahahahaha) and i knew that was the main point of the movie but it didnt matter for my enjoyment. Im not sure if it was in the trailers or people just talked about it openly.
I loved that the face-off procedure is also a body-swap 😂😂😂
My favorite part of this movie is how each actor is trying to portray the other and it is just hilarious to see Travolta go full Cage. That and the face waterfalls of course (shout out to How Did This Get Made?)
“Don’t drag your gross hands across my face!”
-The “Jason” of our group 😉
Lovely reaction - "I could listen to trivia all day" - immortal words lol - the 90s saw a huge influence of recent HK cinema on Hollywood, midwifed by emerging indie adherents like Tarantino, so when John Woo arrived, it was sort of like Hollywood had been waiting for him, and this is the movie that most successfully translates his bizarre sentimental-kinetic HK vibe into Hollywood terms - and I just realized the 00s equivalent of this would be The Departed, another HK import w exchanging doppelganger adversaries - is this some kind of Yin Yang thing that we just can't get enough of over here lol
- the ultimate sci fi take on twins is Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, which is also his masterpiece, w Irons giving one (or two) of the top 5 performances ever committed to film - another lovely take is Cage's own Adaptation
- another sort of equivalent here is a particular sort of disguise film that calls attention to and celebrates the art of acting itself - the best aspect of this film is our joy in watching them enacting their impersonations, acting out these roles, savoring the layers and nuances; we enjoy their display of virtuosity the way we might thrill at the supple intricacy of 2 master basketball players, and the outrageousness of the movie somehow heightens this aspect that we're all just coasting together w the 2 actors on the giddy fun of it all - the 80s equivalent of that might be Tootsie
- a case could be made for Face/Off as the most brilliantly cloying and hamfisted film ever made - maybe the only film that can even be described that way, at least the only American one - it feels more like a tour de force HK actioner from the 80s
Watching Nic Cage act like John Travolta acting like Nic Cage is almost as hilarious as watching anyone, let alone Simone, start watching this without previously knowing the main premise..
I just watched the best Nic Cage movie the other day. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans. Its sooo fucking funny.
The cast is stacked, and Cage's performance is so wild. He's basically a piece of shit cop, and he's got a messed up back, so his left shoulder is always higher than his other one.
I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a wild Nic Cage performance.
31:10 From the top of my head:
Nolan, showing a character from the back while slowly zooming in.
Snyder, a character looking into the distance while the camera pans across the horizon to show the action.
Anderson, symmetry. So much symmetry.
Villeneuve, gigantic landscape shots.
31:11 “See you next Wednesday” for John Landis. A 1973 Delta 88 for Sam Raimi.
This is, by far, John Woo's best American made movie.
If you want to see his best movie ever, watch Hard Boiled or The Killer. Both were made in Hong Kong prior to his American debut.
John Woo and Chow Yun Fat (star of "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled") were huge in Asia and had a cult following in the west (which included Samuel L. Jackson who mentioned them when he told David Letterman that he liked going to theaters in Chinatown to watch Hong Kong action movies), but "The Killer" and "Hard Boiled" were the movies that started getting them known to mainstream American audiences. They and "A Better Tomorrow" are still my favorite John Woo movies.
I don't know if this one is his best, but between this and The Replacement Killers it's definitely a close run thing.
@@jondorr4011 The Replacement Killers isn't directed by John Woo, though.
@@jondorr4011 I'm glad you mentioned "The Replacement Killers." It deserves more recognition.
I've read alot of movie scripts in my time, the early drafts of this were very different. This movie was, and still rightly so is, loved. Such a good film. I remember I wask sixteen turning 17 as this came out in 97, but younger people don't realize when VHS were released it a year for a film to transition from cinema to home release and me and my mate got our other mates mum to rent this out for us. I had already seen IT and scream and mimic by that point so this wouldnt faze me. But it was an 18 and I had only just turned 16. My dad found out and went ballistic. But already watched it so what was done was done. Face off was also one of the first DVDs to ever be released. At that point in their careers, Cage had won an Oscar two years prior and Pulp Fiction had saved and revitalized Travolta's career. So they were truly becoming real forces in Hollywood. So getting them together was a big deal and Travolta knew how Woo working having working with him in Woos first American features, the flawed in ultimately enjoyable, Broken Arrow, 1995, with Christian Slater.
This movie is so ridiculous yet such a blast. This seems like a lost art in Hollywood, where everything needs to be serious nowadays, no matter how outlandish it is. But it's exactly what made so many action flicks in the 80s and 90s so great.
When I go to the barbers I have to reference this movie at the mention of them offering me a hot towel.
Fantastic! When George said Nic Cage is playing John Travolta playing Nic Cage and vice versa that was perfect. Understanding how the actors took their acting to another level.
9:40 - I've met Colm Feore one time when I was working at a movie theater! Super nice guy! He's the guy who plays the doctor.
I saw it in the theater as a teen! It’s incredible how crazy, good & bad, it is. The Mets parts were great like Travolta making fun of his own chin…and Danny Masterson “acting” like himself. The only thing I can’t stand is the cringey face swipe move. It drives me crazy how corny it is. Great review, as always. Thanks!
"Where is this going to go?" It's John Woo, nothing but bullets and doves. And I'm all about it.
RE: Other directors "signature" shots: Kubrik loved one-point perspective; Wes Anderson loves symmetry and a distinct colour palette; the dolly zoom is sometimes known as the Hitchcock Zoom for a reason; Tarantino (in addition to his foot thing) loves to use POV shots from inside a car's boot/trunk.
There are lots more examples.
Oh, and Michael Bay also has the "low circling shot of the main actor standing up in slow motion" in most of his movies.
This is one of my favorite movies. I watched it so much as a kid I could recite the entire thing. One of those movies I watch in my head while working.
The names Castor and Pollux are based on the twin brothers of Greek mythology.
How pretentious are their parents?
@@TheJabbate1 ha ha 😄
When Simone said about Hell A, I was reminded of the song “Hell, CA., Pop. 4” by Love/Hate. I hadn’t known that Hell, California is an actual place which might have had that actual population when the song was written.
There's a movie called Switchback that came out a little while after this, and I used to joke that it was the sequel. As an actor, I'm friends with Dominique Swain, who played the daughter. We used to play Words With Friends all the time, and she would kick my butt. If you like this sort of dynamic with identity, you should watch Darkman. You already saw Mission Impossible, or else I'd recommend that too.