The Crying Game (1992)

I’m shocked how the numerous reveals of “The Crying Game” still build on me, that I find hints never noticed before: Side characters, motivations, phrases with new meanings. Stephen Rea is IRA “volunteer” Fargus, who takes part in the kidnapping of a British soldier (Forrest Whitaker) and as he guards the prisoner, foolishly befriends the man. The soldier knows Fargus’ motives are crumbling and pleads, “Go to England, find my girl, and tell her I love her.” Fargus goes and finds Dil (Jaye Davidson) and follows her, attracted and intrigued by her world, stage presence, and an aura that leaves him curious. Soon, though, our hero’s IRA accomplices (Adrian Dunbar and Miranda Richardson) return and are intent on putting our man though a suicide mission. If he fails, Dil dies. That’s only a portion of Neil Jordan’s film, which also is about an entirely different matter altogether, including how Fargus will not fight for his own life, but will kill a man for insulting his lover. Rea is fantastic, complicated, confused, then sure, and Davidson constantly turns the tables on what Fargus expects and wants, and what we expect and want. A