Face/Off
Short description
Face/Off centres on Sean Archer, an FBI agent who has spent years pursuing the international criminal Castor Troy. When Troy is left comatose after their confrontation, Archer learns that a bomb has been planted somewhere in Los Angeles and that its location is known only to Troy's brother. To extract that information, Archer agrees to an experimental surgical procedure that gives him Troy's face and identity. The deception collapses when Troy wakes from his coma, takes on Archer's appearance in turn, and steps into his life, leaving Archer trapped in the body of the man he hunted and fighting to protect his wife and daughter.
John Woo directed the film, his twelfth of twenty-two features in chronological order, arriving between Broken Arrow and Mission: Impossible II. The screenplay is by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary, and the cast is led by John Travolta as Archer and Nicolas Cage as Troy, with Joan Allen, Alessandro Nivola, Gina Gershon and Dominique Swain in supporting roles. It was produced by Barrie M. Osborne, Terence Chang and David Permut.
Released in 1997, the film had a budget of 80 million US dollars and took about 246 million US dollars worldwide, a strong return. On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from roughly 425,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.1 out of 10 from a much smaller set of votes. A critics' rating of 8 out of 10 from 97 reviews places it above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- As producer Barry Osborne later admitted, many of the action scenes were originally planned to be filmed against a green screen. However, John Woo categorically rejected these proposals and opted for traditional location shooting.
- The idea for the film came to co-writer Mike Verb after his friend was in a hang gliding accident. Most of the skin was removed from his face, his bones were set, and then his face was put back on.
- The prison's name sounds like “Erewhon” in English. This word is a simple anagram of “Nowhere.”
- The scene where Adam listens to “Over the Rainbow” with headphones was John Woo's idea, and not part of the script. Paramount Pictures refused to fund the additional scene, and John Woo invested his own money in it. They were later reimbursed when the film proved profitable.
- When the project was in its early stages, the following names were considered for the lead roles by the producers: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Other actors considered included Harrison Ford and Michael Douglas, Alec Baldwin and Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
- Castor and Pollux are the names of twin demigod heroes, characters from ancient Greek mythology. However, unlike John Woo's film, it was Castor who possessed a curious mind, while Pollux, on the contrary, was incredibly strong and agile.
- Most of the stunts in the film were done without the use of any visual effects.
- John Woo was asked to remove the slash from the title (Face/Off), but he rightly decided to leave it as is, so that viewers wouldn't think the film was about hockey (Faceoff is a hockey term for a face-off).
- Filming took place in California from January 4 to April 1, 1997.
- The first version of the script was set in the near future, but John Woo decided that the action would take place in the present, so that the audience's attention would be focused not on perceiving the world of the future, but on the psychological and dramatic moments of the plot.
- Initially, Nicolas Cage refused the role of Castor Troy, as he did not want to play a villain. However, when he was told that he would actually be playing the hero for most of the film, he immediately agreed.
- Nicolas Cage and John Travolta spent two weeks together before filming to learn to play each other. They identified specific gestures and mannerisms for each character that could be imitated.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
