The Crying Game

Suspenseful and emotionally complex, skillfully mixing politics with affairs of the heart, The Crying Game is something unexpected, a challenging new way to tell a very old story.

Seeing the film twice reveals two completely different viewer perspectives -- a kind of "before and after" syndrome -- and like any good film The Crying Game grows richer as it sinks into your thoughts.

One of the year's best films.

This film must be discovered as it unfolds: If anyone starts to tell you about it, hit him.

Its components are built upon deception and forgiveness, misconnections and misunderstandings, sexual jealousy and moral ambivalence, trust and loyalty, desperation and loneliness. It is also, not incidentally, a crackling good movie.

In a style of agitated naturalism, Jordan examines poignant matters of life and death, sex and friendship, duty and loyalty, freedom and bondage, manhood and womanhood and all the ambiguous areas in between.

Powerful drama has mature sexual themes, violence.

Here's a movie that is difficult to outguess, difficult even to describe. The Crying Game belongs to no particular genre, though it is an absorbing thriller and a memorably offbeat love story.

The movie is at its stunning best as it comes to terms with the impact of its own most devious surprise... Still, at a certain point, it reverts to formula.

[An] exhilarating whirlwind of a drama.

It's a beguiling, eccentric blend of romantic drama and political thriller, and at its centre is a charismatic performance from Stephen Rea.

Erratic but forcefully acted.