The Crying Game Movie Review
Amaze your friends! Ask them who was the first singer to make “The Crying Game” a number-five Brit Hit for 12 weeks. They will say, “Boy George, of course,” and you will say, “No, Dave Berry, on August 6, 1964,” and since the entire U.S. of A. was pre-occupied with The Beatles’ first national tour in August, 1964, they will say, “Who?” Since, on college campuses, a generation seems to last about four years or so, it's possible that someone born in the ‘80s might not know the secret of The Crying Game. If you've already seen 1994's Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, fergeddit, it's too late, but if you really have just arrived on Planet Earth from Planet Mars, The Crying Game is Neil Jordan's Oscar-winning story of Fergus (Stephen Rea), a member of the I.R.A., who becomes friends with Jody, a captive British soldier (Forest Whitaker), and who later looks up Jody's lover, Dil (Jaye Davidson). That's as far as I'm going with this, in case you WERE born in the ‘80s OR emigrated from Mars and didn't have to watch that Naked Gun movie on the flight to Earth. Acting by everyone (including Miranda Richardson as Jude, another I.R.A. member) is first rate. Like many classic movies, The Crying Game is so well made and so much a part of film lore that it's hard to remember that it really has only been part of our cinematic consciousness since 1992.
1992 (R) 112m/C IR Stephen Rea, Jaye Davidson, Miranda Richardson, Forest Whitaker, Adrian Dunbar, Jim Broadbent, Ralph Brown, Breffini McKenna, Joe Savino, Birdie Sweeney, Andre Bernard; D: Neil Jordan; W: Neil Jordan; C: Ian Wilson; M: Anne Dudley. Academy Awards ‘92: Best Original Screenplay; Australian Film Institute ‘93: Best Foreign Film; Independent Spirit Awards ‘93: Best Foreign Film; Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards ‘92: Best Foreign Film; New York Film Critics Awards ‘92: Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress (Richardson); National Society of Film Critics Awards ‘92: Best Actor (Rea); Writers Guild of America ‘92: Best Original Screenplay; Nominations: Academy Awards ‘92: Best Actor (Rea), Best Director (Jordan), Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Davidson). VHS, LV, Letterbox, Closed Caption, DVD