60/60 Review #27: The Crying Game.

Warning: If, for whatever reason, you don't already know the twist in this movie (or anything about the movie in general)... there are spoilers ahead.

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For those of you who follow my podcast, you might remember an earlier episode with one Travis McCollum. During his turn on The Tower, he had to find the pattern between a bunch of movies... and one of those movies was The Crying Game. A running joke came from that episode when he couldn't figure out the answer--that all the movies had full-frontal male nudity--and all he could remember (and shared at great length) about said movie was, and I quote, "penis." Fortunately, I already knew the twist, and this didn't spoil it for me. And I don't believe it spoiled the overall movie for me, either.

The movie begins as IRA terrorists take hostage a British soldier named Jody (Forest Whitaker). One of his captors, Fergus (Stephen Rea), befriends him--until he's given orders to kill him. One of Jody's last wishes is for Fergus to find his lover, Dil (Jaye Davidson), and make sure she's alright. But then Fergus starts to fall in love with Dil... until he finds out her secret. The film co-stars Miranda Richardson as Jude (another IRA terrorist) and Jim Broadbent as Col (a bartender).

This is one twisted romance. A man falls in love with a woman who was in love with the man he was hired to kill, only to find out the woman is actually a man... and then get caught back up in IRA situations. And it all culminates in a scene where Dil is practically insane. I was fascinated by the relationship through the bulk of the film. However, the climax of the movie just seemed... off to me. It didn't feel right for the character. Not to mention the whole third act after the IRA peeps come back into the story just felt cliche and shallow, just added back into the story because there needed to be some action conflict.

The best part of the film, however, was the first act of the film. The bond formed between Forest Whitaker and Stephen Rea is fantastic and heartbreaking. But I do wish there would have been more focus on this part of the film, to make it seem like 3 days had actually passed. It also would have helped to know what was going on. Maybe I missed some throw-away line after he was taken, but I still have no idea why they took him hostage. The whole first 30 minutes felt rushed, despite the fact the relationship and chemistry between Rea and Whitaker was fantastic. It just would have helped the believability of going to find Dil and the conflict faced at the climax of the first act.

So yeah, the best thing about the movie was the relationships between both Fergus and Jody and Fergus and Dil. But everything else was just... OK. It was a good movie overall--I just think it could have been better. The acting was great from Stephen Rea; Forest Whitaker's strange British accent bugged me, though--and that says a lot coming from the master of bad British accents. Jaye Davidson was quite a find. Even after the movie, I had to look up and see whether he really was a guy or not. But yeah, good movie... not great, but good. And I could see why the only thing Travis could remember about this movie was... penis.


I Am McLovin!