There is a point about two thirds of the way into The Crying Game where writer/director Neil Jordan pulls a twist of such audacity that it necessarily alters his audience's entire perception of characters and events to date. This then is the Neil Jordan of old; the Neil Jordan that started his film career with the remarkable revenge thriller Angel, and cemented his reputation with the satisfying, commercially successful Mona Lisa, and not the man who flirted with Hollywood in starry but hollow vehicles like High Spirits and We're No Angels.

Young black soldier Jody (Forest Whitaker) is kidnapped at a funfair by the IRA and taken to a remote farmhouse. Here he's guarded by Fergus (Stephen Rea), and over the passage of three days the two form a simple friendship in the face of such extraordinary circumstances. But eventually the soldier has to die and the young terrorist flees to England promising to visit the dead man's girlfriend and explain.

This forms the first half of the picture and is a virtual two-hander between Rea and Whitaker, the latter - best known for his portrayal of jazz legend Charlie Parker in Eastwood's Bird - battling manfully against being cast as a Tottenham lad with an uneasy accent; it is to his credit that he essays the role with dignity and emotion, even when much of it unfolds under a canvas bag.

But it's with Rea's arrival in London that this becomes very much a (crying) game of two halves. If the first revisits the glories of Angel - albeit with Rea (the star of that film) on the other side of the divide - then the second is very much rooted in the world Bob Hoskins haunted in Mona Lisa. Rea visits Dil (Jaye Davidson), but conceals his identity, beginning an uneasy romance. Inevitably Rea's old IRA cohorts reappear in his life, anxious to know exactly what happened in Ireland and with an assassination job for him to carry out. Here Jordan brilliantly weaves a tight web of intrigue and tension, while underlining it with his plot twist that is make or break time in its daring but succeeds mainly through the committed playing of his star (Rae appears in virtually every scene in the movie) and an exceptionally assured performance from the debuting Davidson in a particularly demanding role.

Ably assisted by Anne Dudley's brooding score and strategic use of the title song, The Crying Game is a movie about atmosphere, and the director gets the delicate balance of moods spot on, easing over the potentially jarring shifts - from political thriller to left-field love story, and back to the inevitably blood-soaked finale - with a firm hand in this highly detailed and meticulously structured tale of transferred allegiances across both political and sexual divides. The main players are well augmented by uniformly strong support, not least from Adrian Dunbar and Miranda Richardson as members of Rea's old IRA faction, and the redoubtable Jim Broadbent as a bartender who 'interprets' between Fergus and Dil. The film belongs however to Rae who has never been better, playing essentially the same laconic, slightly bewildered role he scored with as the avenging sax-man in Angel. This then is a subtle, poignant narrative, told with warm humour and a genuine sense of invention and risk. It's to be hoped that now Jordan has refound his feet he remains up and running.