Thoughts on only my second viewing of Face/Off

I went into Friday night, the second night of a three-day weekend, knowing I was going to watch something I'd seen only once before, but not knowing what it would be.

I figured to make this determination by browsing a streaming service at random, and then a second if the first didn't yield any results that I was feeling on this particular occasion. As it turned out, I made my ultimate determination because the movie in question was playing on the free-to-air channel that came on when I turned on the TV.

This was earlier in the evening, when the family and I were going to watch something different during our dinner. So I didn't sit and watch it right there. I did, however, decide it was finally time to revisit John Woo's Face/Off, which I'd seen only once, and it was available for streaming on Disney+.

The fact that I have not revisited this film in the 26 years since it was released is a strange one. I always think of it as Woo's best film, and in 1997, it finished as my #3 film of the year. Number three! 

To give you some idea how odd it is that I haven't reconsidered it since then, I have rewatched every other film in my top 15 of 1997 at least once. That includes, in the following order, Titanic, Contact, Starship Troopers, Waiting for Guffman, Liar Liar, Donnie Brasco, Boogie Nights, Private Parts, U-Turn, L.A. Confidential, Hercules, Men in Black and Breakdown. (The order of these films' significance to me may have changed since then, but I still like all these films quite a lot.) Only at #16 do you get the second best movie of 1997 that I'd never rewatched, which is Neil Labute's In the Company of Men.

So why the hesitation on rewatching such a fun popcorn movie with such a high likelihood of playing similarly for me on a second viewing?

Well I'll start by saying I don't think I've avoided a second viewing. Repeat viewings tend to have an element of randomness to them, dependant more on mood and availability than as a correlation to your feelings about the film. 

If there's a subconscious part of me that's avoided the second viewing, however, it could be for the reasons stated here. Yes, that post was called "One-timers I worry won't hold up," and it included the top ten films I'd seen only once on Flickchart that I was concerned might not survive the scrutiny of a second viewing.

With Woo in particular, it's because the signature elements of his filmmaking -- doves, absurd double-fisted gunplay -- became so ripe for parody so soon after Face/Off that I worried they would curdle my appreciation of that film.

And that's exactly how Face/Off started for me. There's an opening shootout that is just as dumb as dumb can get in these movies, which inclined me to cast aspersions over a whole era of action filmmaking. Yes, it's certainly "cool" to watch someone shoot with a gun in each hand, but has there ever been a less realistic form of combat? I'm sure there are skilled shootists out there who could withstand the recoil of the shot and keep their aim enough to potentially hit a target, but it wouldn't be a very efficient way to face your enemies -- better to just get a really good shot with one gun, and then another really good shot a half-second later. Add to that the fact that in these movies -- it was by no means limited to Face/Off -- the person toting the guns is also leaping out sideways while shooting at their opponent, and sometimes engaging in superfluous forward rolls that look kind of like they are tripping themselves to land on their own back before bouncing up again. It's hard to imagine the strategic justification for such moves.

I even went so far as to tell my wife, when she entered the room, that this movie was "terrible." (We had discussed earlier that we both really liked it in 1997.)

But after the opening scene ended, Face/Off started to remind me why I enjoyed it so much. And it occurred to me that though the action was certainly the thing that was sold to us at the time, Woo being an apparent expert in that arena, it's everything other than the action that I like so much about this movie.

The existential anxiety both characters experience, wearing the face of their enemy, is pretty good, considering that the story was probably first and foremost considered an armature on which to hang the explosions and gunplay. But what really surprised me was how invested I become in the journey of John Travolta's Sean Archer, who of course presents to us for most of the movie as Nicolas Cage. The climax -- first when he is addressed as Archer by the agents arriving on the scene, a triumphant proof that his face-swapping story has been believed, and then when he brings home Castor Troy's child to live with him after both of his parents were killed in the film's final set piece -- really got to me, such that I felt an actual lump in my throat.

I don't even necessarily think this was my reaction in 1997. I think I probably just thought "Wow, a guy holding two guns!" I mean, I did always think the absurd face-swapping story was a stroke of gonzo genius, but I'm not sure I appreciated all the nuances at that time, or the fact that the film genuinely tries to imagine what it would be like for these two men and the people who love them. 

I don't want to go through and pick out all the individual details -- actors I noticed that I might not have known at the time, funny lines of dialogue, etc. -- but there was one thing I wanted to call attention to because it relates to the recent news. And it does happen to involve an actor I wouldn't have known at the time.

There's a scene where Sean's daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain) is brought home by her date, and before she gets out of the car he begins forcing himself on her. Like not just flirtatious touches he hopes will go somewhere more, but actual grabbing and fondling and trying to penetrate orifices with digits. Castor, in the body of Sean, may not care inherently about the safety or purity of Jamie -- rather, he's probably more likely to consider it an infringement on his property. So he kicks the guy's ass all over the driveway.

That guy is played by Danny Masterson.

That's right, the former That 70's Show star who was just sentenced to 30 years to life after being convicted of rape. Talk about life imitating art. (We weren't actually talking about it -- I hate how people use the phrase "talk about" when they aren't actually talking about something.)

I always thought that guy was a prick, and apparently the Face/Off casting director could see it coming off him in waves as long as a quarter century ago.