Face/Off Special Edition DVD Review
Posted by George H. Sirois on 10.03.2007

But youre still not having any FUN!!!

Action movies are not easy to make, despite how formulaic they seem. Theres a special trick to them that allows audiences to get into the storyline, get involved with the characters and then get wowed by the explosions and chases. Most of the time, the stories are simple enough to be the necessary framework for the big set pieces and snappy one-liners that the audience paid to see and hear. The storylines, however, tend to have a credible premise a race against time, a hostage situation, a drug bust, a robbery, etc. so that the audience has something to buy into before getting hit with all the action.

But then along came the summer of 1997, when a film by John Woo exploded onto the screens starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. The film in question was Face/Off, and it was one of the bigger success stories from that season. And thank God for it too, since this was the year we were subjected to Batman & Robin, Speed 2: Cruise Control and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Someone HAD to step up, and fortunately for all of us, it was John Woos actioner that stood out.

The key factor that made this film such a great time is this simple fact: there isnt a single moment here thats not full-on, pumped up to eleven, all the way to the extreme. The main characters agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) and his nemesis Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) act just like theyre out of a comic book, with Archer constantly distraught over the death of his son and Troy dancing around, strutting like a pea**** and reveling in every underage ass he grabs. Just like a lot of other action films, theres a bomb that needs to be discovered and disarmed, but this one is the size of a nuclear missile. And instead of your typical Alcatraz prison, the one in this film is in the middle of the ocean, completely undetectable with a magnetic field preventing escape.

But of course, the whole film lives and dies with its basic pitch: The good guy switches faces with the bad guy to discover the whereabouts of the aforementioned bomb. The bad guy wakes up and has the good guys face put on his to get back at him. Is it a ludicrous premise? Absolutely, but once you let it take you in, youre in for one hell of a ride. And once Archer becomes Troy and Troy becomes Archer, the reasoning behind Travolta and Cages acting in the first act becomes apparent. Now, its Cage that is constantly living in angst and Travolta channeling The Joker with his dancing and taunting. Once those pieces fall into place, the movie kicks into overdrive and doesnt stop until its incredibly intense final action sequence that is just vintage John Woo.

Now, ten years later, a DVD of Face/Off has been re-released on DVD as a 2-Disc Special Edition, and Im so glad I waited for this. While the original version was a simple single-disc with a trailer, this one has two commentary tracks one with John Woo and the writers Mike Werb & Michael Colleary, and another with just the writers. The first commentary has Woo talking about the movie from his point of view with the writers asking him questions about various shots. (One of those shots was the infamous slo-mo shot of Nic Cage as Castor Troy stepping out of his car during the opening credits.) The second commentary moves a lot better since the writers are talking about their feelings when they wrote the script, and quite a few moments veer pretty close to my Scene Anatomy 101 territory. Very enjoyable.

The first disc also has several deleted scenes. Theyre all pretty redundant and dont advance the film very much, so it was a good call on Woos part to get rid of them.

The second disc has more goodies, with the first one being a feature-length retrospective documentary about the making of the film. Its incredibly detailed, with the writers talking about the original idea that spawned the whole thing: how cool it would be if Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were in a film together. The other documentary is John Woo: A Life in Pictures, which is a fascinating look at John Woos life growing up and getting into films. This documentary goes into Woos first film all the way to his experience shooting Mission: Impossible II. Very informative and interesting. And then the special features end with the main theatrical trailer.

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