THE CRYING GAME
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: An IRA kidnapping leads to a chain of
events that keeps both the characters and the audience
guessing. MONA LISA director Neil Jordan has equaled or
surpassed that film in one of the best movies of the year.
Rating +3 (-4 to +4). See it before someone spoils it for
you.
[Spoiler comments follow main review.]
At an amusement park in Northern Ireland, English soldier Jody (played by Forest Whitaker) has a good-looking local girl on his arm. They go off to be alone and suddenly Jody finds there are three men holding guns on him. The IRA has kidnapped Jody. They will kill him if the IRA prisoner held by the English is not released. Jody is brought to a hiding place. There he begins the slow task of picking out one of his captors and trying to make him an ally. He chooses Fergus (played by Stephen Rea). Jody shows Fergus a picture of his girlfriend Dil (played by Jaye Davidson). Little do Jody, Fergus, and Dil know how the one action has bound them together.
THE CRYING GAME is a film for you to go to see ... quickly. Don't read any more reviews. This is a tough film to review without revealing any of the plot twists. Word is going to get around soon about this film. See it first. And don't tell anyone else either.
THE CRYING GAME was written and directed by Neil Jordan, who previously directed and co-wrote MONA LISA. The similarities will be obvious. Each film has an intelligent script that lulls characters and audience alike into one set of assumptions, then turns those assumptions inside out. The two films have much the same visual style. Jaye Davidson and Cathy Tyson are both sexy and attractive in much the same way. In both cases the main character is a white male in love with the beautiful centerpiece of the film across racial lines. And in fact it seems unimportant that it is across racial lines, though each comes from a fairly racist culture. This film and MONA LISA each has a delightful sense of irony which in THE CRYING GAME extends to the music over the end credit sequence.
The two black stars both have to be surprisingly versatile in this film and each manages. Forest Whitaker (GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM!; CRIMINAL JUSTICE; and A RAGE IN HARLEM) is an odd choice to play an English soldier. His accent rings very true to my admittedly non-British ears. Jaye Davidson's performance will be the best remembered of the film probably. The part calls for Dil to go through some major changes and Davidson is always to the mark.
THE CRYING GAME is certainly one of the best films of the year. I rate it a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
[Spoilers]
[Spoilers]
The film did not quite make sense in that neither of the people would have been sent to prison. In either case it was self-defense against a person who had been involved in a previous IRA killing.
Mark R. Leeper
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