Looking back at The Crying Game after a quarter of a century from its cinema release, it still is an intriguing film. It also looks increasingly quaint because within two years of its release there was a rapprochement between the IRA and the British government that would eventually lead to the peace process.Jody (Forest Whitaker) is a British soldier in Northern Ireland who is befriended by Jude (Miranda Richardson) who is an IRA agent. She plans to lure him into a honey trap where he is kidnapped.Jody angry and shocked befriends Fergus (Stephen Rea) one of his kidnappers. They tell stories to each other, Jody talks of his passion for cricket and his girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson.) Jody asks Fergus to look up Dil after he is dead.When the times comes Fergus reluctantly takes up the task to shoot him but Jody runs away into the woods and is run over by an army van that was on its way to rescue him and engages in battle with some of the kidnappers.Fergus escapes and arrives to London, gets a job in a building site and finds Dil who works as an hairdresser and performs at a nearby pub. They initially communicate via Col the barman (Jim Broadbent.)Dil is being harassed by a bully called Dave and it is not long before Fergus's IRA comrades arrive. They are angry at him for escaping in the aftermath of the botched hit on Jody. Yet Fergus and Dil still manage to fall in love through all the obstacles that arise.The film has an opening of a kidnap thriller with angry performances from Miranda Richardson and Adrian Dunbar as the IRA operatives. It then deviates to another kind of story, one involving a blossoming romance between essentially two outsiders, damaged in their own ways. Dil grieving over her boyfriend who has been killed but not knowing of Fergus's involvement in it.There are now two Oscar winners in this film. Forest Whitaker's cockney accent makes Dick van Dyke's turn in Mary Poppins into a masterclass of accents. The more subtle performance is from Jim Broadbent as the knowing barman.There is a precocious, vulnerable performance from Jaye Davidson whose hands betray a secret which Fergus failed to pick up on. The film has characters that lacked depth and a third act which was clunky and disappointing as Fergus is lured to another job by his so called IRA friends.

A British soldier is kidnapped by IRA terrorists. He befriends one of his captors, who is drawn into the soldier's world.The then-fledgling film company Miramax decided to promote the film in the United States where it became a sleeper hit, earning over $60 million at the box office. A memorable advertising campaign generated intense public curiosity by asking audiences not to reveal the film's "secret" to their friends. Jordan also believed the film's success was a result of the film's British/Irish political issues being either lesser-known or completely unknown to American audiences, who thus flocked to the film for what Jordan called "the sexual politics." Alright, so I knew the "secret" for years before seeing this film. In fact, that is all I knew and thought it would come later in the picture. I was pleasantly surprised that this film has so much more -- history, political intrigue, thrills, and some crime elements. I have no idea what is up with Whittaker's voice -- he sounds dubbed.

This film is somewhat strange in the sense that it feels like a political thriller for one portion of the film, but then throws you into a romantic story immediately after this (and aspects of the political thriller come back later). The first story is terrific in that it shows us an interesting bond between a soldier held hostage and the man who is assigned to watch him at gunpoint. It seems like a very tense story at first, but a good amount of humor emerges from the interactions between the two men to keep some of the tension at bay.I have to keep myself limited in my comments because what causes the "first part" to end and the "second part" to begin is a spoiler in itself. I don't feel at liberty to say much about the second part, but I will give it a try. The main points you need to know about the second part are that a romantic relationship develops and that a third party threatens the "couple" formed in this section of the film. Also, the midpoint of the film reveals a twist which made me uncomfortable for the rest of the film's duration, but did not necessarily cause it to be a bad film in my eyes.The film is well-executed and makes you think about important topics and issues which I will not get into here since it would spoil the movie. You simply need to watch the film in order to experience it; there are too many ways to spoil the movie if I get too in depth in my criticism. So I will leave you with the fact that the movie is well-executed, but the story is not the most enticing and I felt uncomfortable for a large portion of the movie. If you're willing to give a mysterious film which I'd say is a 7/10 a chance, go for it. If not, that's fine too.3.0/4.0

Jody (Forest Whitaker) is a British soldier lured and kidnapped by Jude (Miranda Richardson) and her IRA group with Fergus (Stephen Rea). Jody befriends Fergus and Jody tells him about his girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson). Jody runs away as Fergus follows reluctant to shoot him. By coincidence, the British army arrive to gun down the IRA group and accidentally runs over Jody. Fergus escapes and seeks out Dil, the London hairdresser.Writer/director Neil Jordan does something special here. There is a slightly homosexual tone between Jody and Fergus' interaction. It doesn't let on but it's constantly there. Of course it's about the shocking reveal. It certainly shocked me when I first saw it. At first glance, it could be seen as a simple gimmick. However watching it more than once, the whole movie is infused with that theme. The twist isn't something out of the blue and yet it's completely unexpected.