The Crying Game
An IRA soldier (Stephen Rea) develops a relationship with the lover (Jaye Davidson) of a British soldier (Forest Whitaker) he’d been assigned to kill.
The Crying Game is an excellently scripted, brilliantly acted and wonderfully produced story. Unfortunately it’s also a story that’s been told many times before and, aside from a somewhat novel twist, there’s really nothing new here.
The biggest problem is that there’s really two stories to tell (the first between Stephen Rea and Forest Whitaker and the second between Stephen Rea and Jaye Davidson) but only one movie to tell them. The result is that all the characters aside from the above three are horribly underdeveloped and border on stereotypes.
While I applauder writer-director Neil Jordan’s attempt to broaden the classic story with his now famous gender twist, he short-changes his supporting cast and glosses over what could potentially be a much more interesting story in Stephen Rea’s character’s reexamination of his own sexuality.
Viewing History
- Mon, Jul 5, 2004