Crying game shocker

Nov 25, wide. Jul 3, Live Video, Miramax Films. Stephen Rea Fergus. Miranda Richardson Jude. Forest Whitaker Jody.

Jim Broadbent Broadbent. Ralph Brown Dave. Adrian Dunbar Maguire. Jaye Davidson Dil. Andree Bernard Jane. Neil Jordan Director. Neil Jordan Writer. Nik Powell Executive Producer. Stephen Woolley Producer. Simon Boswell Original Music. Anne Dudley Original Music.

Chris Lowe Original Music. Geoff Stephens Original Music. Neil Tennant Original Music. Ian Wilson Cinematographer. Kant Pan Film Editor. Susie Figgis Casting. Jim Clay Production Design.

Chris Seagers Art Direction. Martin Childs Set Decoration. Sandy Powell Costume Designer. View All Critic Reviews Nov 29, The Crying Game is an example of a film that has crumbled under the weight of its age. Though it can still be appreciated for the shock it carried upon its release, it's got precious little to retain the attention of modern viewers who've become accustomed to the twists and turns of mystery cinema.

Isaac H Super Reviewer. Jul 27, Mostly known for "the big reveal," which is kind of a shame, since there are quite a few different intriguing elements in Neil Jordan's mediation on sexual politics. Also, is there a more quietly effective actor than Stephen Rea? Not many other actors can be both understated and powerful the way he can. Jonathan H Super Reviewer. Apr 06, Its cinematography and look is refreshing, yet its originally unique twists quickly become tedious, especially in the rather awkward 3rd act, which seemed to drag on forever.

Sadly, I found its romantic center too redundantly inhibitory and its action scenes far too sparse. Edward S Super Reviewer. Jan 10, Probably my favorite thing about "The Crying Game" is how well-paced it is.

For me, those minutes flew right on by. Now, that's usually a sign that you really like the film you're watching, but to tell you the truth, I didn't. Neil Jordan has an original and offbeat way of telling his romance story and both his direction and the acting are super, but other than that, it doesn't feel like a great film, which his "Mona Lisa" was.

Of course, "The Crying Game" was a huge hit at the time of its release, and I can respect it for that, but really, I don't entirely see why it was so popular. Stephen E Super Reviewer.

See all Audience reviews. There are no approved quotes yet for this movie. Best Horror Movies. Worst Superhero Movies. Best Netflix Series and Shows. Go back. More trailers. Peacemaker: Season 1. Euphoria: Season 2. Archive Season 1. Naomi: Season 1. Pivoting: Season 1. Wolf Like Me: Season 1. No Score Yet. All Creatures Great and Small: Season 2. The Righteous Gemstones: Season 2. Walker: Season 2. Stay Close: Season 1. Likewise Fergus and Dil come together too easily and yet, although it doesn't ever ring true, it still managed to engage me and make me care.

The cast don't really help either. Whittaker manages to get past the fact that his accent is pretty horrible and the fact that his character is weak and ends up producing a reasonable performance. Rea is likewise hampered with the problem of trying to make his character work despite the material but yet he also somehow manages it.

Davidson plays it all well but it slightly takes away from the film that very few people will not know his surprise. Dunbar and Richardson are far too basic to be worth a great deal although they do have very little material to help. Like I say though, somehow Rea, Davidson and Whittaker all make it work.

It is somehow greater than the sum of its parts and I was confused as to how it managed to do it. I watched the movie yesterday and THAT image is still in my brain. I can't say I was shocked, because it takes a lot to shock these days, but it sure wasn't expected. By that time, the story had already transitioned from being about IRA terrorists to a conflicted romantic entanglement that brought into question the sexual identities of all the principals, and I'm including in that statement the characters of Jody Forest Whitaker and Dave Ralph Brown.

The terrorism angle is picked up again later in the film with the assassination attempt that goes awry, and I couldn't help thinking that Miranda Richardson might have been channeling Uma Thurman's character from "Pulp Fiction", but in checking the release date of that picture coming a couple years after this one, maybe it was Thurman channeling Miranda Richardson from this one.

All very disorienting. Anyway, I was intrigued enough to check out Jaye Davidson's bio page here on IMDb just to satisfy my curiosity, and I imagine you will too now that I mention it. Quite honestly, I didn't know what to expect but it's not as weird as it could have been I guess. It's hard to tell whether they're portraying the IRA negatively or positively, but once the twist comes, you're sure to have your mind blown.

But trust me, what this movie portrays is no laughing matter at all. Anyway, it's not like anything that you've ever seen before. And it certainly affirms Neil Jordan as a unique director. Also starring Miranda Richardson and Jim Broadbent. A British soldier is kidnapped by IRA terrorists. He befriends one of his captors, who is drawn into the soldier's world.

A memorable advertising campaign generated intense public curiosity by asking audiences not to reveal the film's "secret" to their friends. 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.

When the hostage-holding goes wrong and Jody is hit by a car when escaping, Fergus, feeling responsible, decides to go and see the woman Jody's lover. He calls himself Jimmy and gets a job as a day labourer, and eventually starts seeing Dil, who has no idea of his IRA background.

But the pivotal moment of the film is when Fergus eventually undresses Dil, and he didn't realise, she is a he! The Crying Game definition: To find out your girlfriend who you've had intercourse with used to be a man, or, To get a woman to undress herself only for her to reveal a penis. Also starring Jim Broadbent as Col.

I have to admit the first time I saw the film I thought Dil was played by a girl, and they had trick photography, I didn't realise it was guy!

Featuring three or four versions of the song "The Crying Game", my favourite version is by Boy George. Very good! I really tried to like this movie. The critics before I knew better raved about this film so much it got me pumped up to see it.

Well, to say it was a letdown is putting it mildly. Then again, a lot of people like sick and sordid films.

I learned the hard way how sick mainline film critics are since they just loved the idea of a key character in the film turning out to be a transsexual. Okay, if you say so. There are just too many uncomfortable, sordid and dark scenes in this movie, including a horrible first 15 minutes in which Forest Whitaker is a hysterical IRA hostage out in the middle of the woods.

That beginning was anything but entertaining, at least to me. However, I don't know anyone who watched this movie and liked it - not one! Highly unusual drama concerning an English soldier Forest Whitaker who is kidnapped by an underground Irish Army, eventually befriending his captor Stephen Rea , which leads to a complicated series of personal entanglements involving the soldier's lover the mysterious Jaye Davidson.

Exceptionally well-made picture from canny director Neil Jordan, who also penned the screenplay and won an Oscar.

Too bad the third act is so convoluted, and the final scene so banal, that a slight dissatisfaction clouds the overall result. Nevertheless, a daring and provocative piece with excellent performances. A very fine drama and love story set amid England and the IRA. TxMike 25 June I saw this movie first on VHS, probably around or so.

I didn't recall thinking it was particularly good, but it was my first exposure to actor Forest Whitaker. After seeing him recently in "Last King of Scotland" I decided to revisit this movie to see him again in this earlier role. The movie is much better than I remembered it, probably because I have become a better, more attentive movie watcher.

Forest Whitaker is Jody, a British soldier who is lured away from a carnival by a pretty woman who was part of an IRA band to kidnap Jody. They would use him as leverage to get one of their own released.

A really good movie, and the DVD has a number of interesting extras. It is not easy to include a summary without revealing the big surprise at exactly into the movie. Fergus is asked to shoot Jody but, having gotten to know him as a person cannot do it. However, as Jody is running away, he crosses onto a road and is hit and killed by a vehicle, while Briish helicopter is shooting up the IRA hideout.

Fergus escapes and takes a new name, 'Jimmy', and a new job, hoping to never be discovered. He looks up Jody's girlfriend, 'Dil', and takes a liking to her.

It is mutual. However, Jaye Davidson in a supporting actor Oscar nomination as Dil, turns out to be a man, a young cross-dresser. At first repulsed, Fergus has taken a liking to Dil and can't walk away.

Meanwhile, not all IRA were killed that day, and Jude shows up, telling Fergus he has to make a hit on a Briish judge in London, or they will go after Dil. Things don't work out, Jude comes looking for Fergus, but Dil takes the handgun and kills Jude off.

But Fergus takes the blame, gets sent to prison, where as the movie ends we see Dil visiting, they counting down the days, only 2, some days left! Jim Broadbent has a good role as the bartender Col. Theo Robertson 13 July Given the task of guarding him Fergus listens to Jody discuss his life. Showing Fergus a photograph of his girlfriend Dil and Fergus starts a strange obsession for Dil In this came and went in the blink of an eye at the British box office.

Hardly surprising because the British box office appetite for Brit movies was still three or four years away. A British film in those days was basically a TV play with slightly better production values and this one is little different.

When it was released in the rest of the world it became the film to see especially in America. Cynical Brits who hadn't seen the film would sneer that showing the IRA is a good light might have everything to do with it but then critics and marketing started making reference to the film's twist so much that when the film started picking up nominations at the big awards ceremonies people would jokingly ask if Jaye Davidson would be Oscar nominated as best supporting actor or best supporting actress This of course lets the cat out of the bag for everyone who hadn't seen the film.

If it was a conventional love story it would have headed straight to video and obscurity. Great suspension of disbelief is needed and the disbelief is a bit too difficult to suspend. Dil might look very feminine on celluloid but I can tell you in real life ladyboy wannabes are not so convincing. I remember one time in Pokhara in Nepal the town opened its gates to a ladyboy convention and I guarantee you not even Stevie Wonder would be fooled. There's a mannerism and a metaphysical aura to a transsexual impersonating a woman that fails to convince and knowing this you'd have severe doubts that Fergus would be taken in.

The screenplay itself is very contrived with Jody having to become conveniently deaf which seals his fate and Fergus having to bump in to old friends That said I did find myself not exactly enjoying the film after first seeing it after a gap of nearly twenty years but respecting it more. This is certainly almost down to the hype surrounding the film on its release in America where the critics gave the impression this was the greatest film ever made.

It's not but is a well acted well made drama. Forest Whittaker makes a mess of his accent which while rarely slipping in to American doesn't sound like a London accent. It's never as deep as it tries try to be fusing issues of sexuality and identity.

It's a love story with a difference but apart from the shock plot twist it's a film that would have appeared on channel 4 one Thursday night without causing a ripple. Nice cricket movie. Of course some people focus on "that disturbing scene" I prefer to look at the positives. LeonLouisRicci 6 February This well known Film and its equally well known and at the time unexpected, explicit, and shocking scene, tries to be a dual Drama.

It has a "split personality". It has both humanistic and political concerns. The double story combines uneasily and probably would have been better concentrating on the trans-looking and trans-spirited nature and the uncomfortable, but warm, relationship of the two very sensitive characters that are at the heart of this gallant effort.

The opening scenes are the least affecting and the intertwining of both "soldiers" back-story commitment is uneasy, if not forced into the narrative. The best parts are some creative dialog and the "lovers" interplay.

The result is a not so great film with an attraction of aspects that do move things along, but with uneven results. It is the compelling and quite different coupling that works the best and the other part seems to belong in another Film with another agenda. To geminate the two story lines appears to be the biggest failing and in the end it is very good by a half. I knew about the twist in advance of seeing the film, so I was able to concentrate on the rest of the story, and it's quite a good one.

Neil Jordan crafted a slick little IRA thriller with a dusting of modern-day noir, and the film scores on both the levels of plot and character. Stephen Rea and Jaye Davidson received Oscar nominations for their performances whatever happened to either of them? Grade: A-. Mr-Fusion 23 June An IRA thug who falls for his prisoner's girlfriend. But it's much more than that.

Fate, deception, guilt, love - it's about all of those as well, but to discount it as centering on the twist is completely unfair.

To me, the best thing about this movie is that it ended up being entirely different from how it began. And along the way, there are great performances Stephen Rea and Jaye Davidson, in particular , striking cinematography and engaging direction to its credit.

Note: If you've ever seen a certain Jim Carrey movie, then you know the twist I'm talking about. The reason I bring this up is because the movie stands on its own very well despite this spoiler, and remains absolutely worth seeing.

Its so brave, that it doesn't let you move from your seat. Neil Jordan's Direction, on the other-hand, is marvelous. He has executed the film with flourish. Ian Wilson's Cinematography is top-class.

Editing is good. Art Design is appropriate. Make-Up is fabulously done. Performance-Wise: Stephen Rea is astonishing. He plays a guilt-driven man with utter brilliance. Forest Whitaker is extra-ordinary. Miranda Richardson is haunting, while Adrian Dunbar is convincing. Jim Broadbent is charming. On the whole, 'The Crying Game' is not to be missed! It's so funny because I know the exact plot of The Crying game, not just from I love the 90's, other viewers, or as this was named the number one most shocking movie of all time in Entertainment Weekly, I was thinking when I rented this movie how I wouldn't be shocked due to the fact that I knew what was going to happen, do you know what happened during the "love" scene?

I actually gasped and laughed! Poor Stephen Rea, this movie was so great in the fact of how an Irishman's world could be totally turned over when the greatest circumstances come along. James has kidnapped along with his gang, a soldier, Jody. He and Jody become friends somewhat before tragically Jody is killed, but Jody asked him if he could see his true love, Dil, to let her know that she was the last thing he thought of.

James meets Dil and falls in love with her to find out an interesting little "Thing" about her, she doesn't know yet that he knew her Jody and it could literally destroy each other once they find out each other's secrets. The Crying Game still to this day is one of the most shocking movies of all time and not to mention, just over all, a great film.

The acting and story were just incredible and so unique. I really enjoyed The Crying Game, I think honestly anyone else can too, don't judge too harshly, look at the true art of the film and the story, it really is incredible. I miss the real shock movies, the one's that for some reason still contain the same emotions decades later, you know? ElMaruecan82 27 January Sex, race,, terrorism, gender identity