The hero is a soft-spoken IRA terrorist named Fergus (Stephen Rea), who participates in the kidnapping of a political hostage, the black British soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker). Assigned to guard the man he may have to kill, Fergus’s innately kind nature gets him in trouble with his more fanatical colleagues (Miranda Richardson and Adrian Dunbar). A bond develops between prisoner and captor that threatens Fergus’s political priorities. This part of the story ends in horror (though not the way we expect), and Fergus is forced to flee Ireland for London. There he takes a construction job, changes his name and finds Jody’s hairdresser girlfriend, Dil (Jaye Davidson), whom he had promised to look in on should anything happen to the soldier.
A teasing, seductive intimacy immediately develops. Fergus is drawn to the alluring Dil, a part-time chanteuse at the local bar, with a complicated mix of guilt, lust and affection. Eager to escape his past, but haunted by it, he doesn’t reveal to Dil his relationship to her former lover. But his IRA past comes calling nonetheless, threatening Dil and the man he’s become. When he springs into action, this diffident hero discovers within himself his true, chivalric nature.
Rea, who has the long face of a forlorn pixie, isn’t an obvious leading man; his gentle, ironic charisma creeps up on you, and makes his particular form of heroism all the more touching. Davidson, who hasn’t acted before, is startlingly good as a woman ready to give all for love, and Whitaker, whose spirit hangs over their affair and seems to guide it, is terrific as the affable, cricket-loving victim. It’s impossible to discuss the richness of Jordan’s masterfully constructed work without spoiling its deceptions and disguises. When it’s over, you play the movie back in your mind, seeing everything in a fresh light. If the test of a good movie is how it makes an audience feel when the lights come up, The Crying Game is a very good movie indeed. It leaves one giddy.
The Bodyguard
Someone is trying to kill pop diva Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston). The man hired to protect her is ex-Secret Service agent Frank Farmer (Kevin Costner), state-of-the-art bodyguard. At first, Rachel doesn’t know the extent of the danger she’s in. Surrounded in her lavish Beverly Hills palazzo by family and flunkies who keep the truth from her, the temperamental superstar resents Frank’s intrusions on her lifestyle. They bicker. Then they sleep together. Then he pulls away, knowing that he can’t maintain his strict professional standards if his heart is involved.
Directed in a jumpy, off-balance style by Mick Jackson from a Lawrence (Grand Canyon) Kasdan script written ages ago and revised, The Bodyguard is a wildly uneven romantic thriller. Costner is the best thing in it, his wary, blunt cool niftily balanced by self-effacing humor. But for the movie to transcend its formulaic soul, Rachel needs to be a far more alluring, complex figure than Houston, a novice at acting, can pull off. She’s in her element when she performs, but she doesn’t know how to build a character. Her fits and mood swings seem arbitrary, driven only by movie convention. Still, if you can overlook the obvious flaws—a bumpy beginning, a villain whose motive is both too obvious and hard to swallow—The Bodyguard has its flashy, shallow pleasures. There’s some wit in Kasdan’s script, and plenty of dread in the big Oscar-ceremony climax (reminiscent of The Man Who Knew Too Much). When it works, it’s like watching a paranoid edition of
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title: “Very Dangerous Liaisons” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-15” author: “Rocco Morris”
The tragedy may have been an accident waiting to happen: after years of being fed by backpackers, the dingoes on Fraser have lost their fear of humans. And that dangerously close interaction between man and beast is being repeated across Australia, as ecotourists range farther afield in search of a wilderness that remains vast, untamed and highly unpredictable. “Dingoes are not the only danger. There’s funnel-web spiders, poisonous snakes. It’s certainly well known not to swim on the eastern beach–the sharks are on that side,” says Donna Ebsary, a Fraser Island guide. “There are many dangers going to Fraser, but that’s probably one of the major attractions for people.”
Those dangers are increasing, to the point where tourists may have to rethink how they vacation Down Under. Australia already has the most venomous snakes and spiders in the world. Now, after successful conservation efforts in the past 30 years, the number of deadly predators has risen dramatically. Fraser itself has more than 200 purebred dingoes, wild dogs that don’t bark; crocodiles, after being hunted nearly to extinction, now number about 80,000 in the Australian wild. As wildlife officials cull nonindigenous animals like goats, horses, camels and feral cats from the country’s fragile ecosystem, the predators find themselves with much less to eat, driving them into human campsites.
Authorities say they can do little but warn tourists to be careful. In Darwin, where more than 150 crocodiles were removed from the city harbor last year, officials have set up the Croc Sighting hot line, and hotel brochures warn guests to stick to swimming in the pool. “We told people, ‘If you give them a chance, they’ll grab you. They’ll rip your arms off. They’ll grab your kids and eat them in front of you’,” says Dr. Grahame Webb, director of Crocodylus Park in Darwin. But critics say that the warnings are toned down in order not to frighten off tourists–and accuse the government of being too ready to resort to culling predators instead of keeping people away from them. “In the past we’ve been able to camp wherever we liked in designated areas. We’ll have to make it a little bit more restricted,” says Judith Blackshaw, an animal-behavior professor at the University of Queensland. That seems a small price to pay to save the life of another child.
