Divorcing Jack(1998)

David Thewlis is Dan Starkey, a drunken journalist having an affair with Margaret (Laura Fraser), part-time girlfriend of IRA member Cow Pat Keegan (Jason Isaacs). While out for pizza on one of these ocassions he returns to find her bullet riddled and dying. She says what he thinks is “Divorcing Jack”. He suspects everybody, and everybody suspects him, especially Margaret’s boyfriend Keegan who manages to be both frighteningly ruthless and dryly funny at the same time. (Dropping a rather unsympathetic character off a building he notes “Fastest reader I ever saw – 13 stories in 13 seconds”.)

Turns out Margaret was TRYING to say Dvorak (pronounced De-vor-jack), referencing a tape marked as “Dvorak” but really containing the confession of Michael Brinn, Prime Minister hopeful, to a murder he committed while a member of the IRA. Brinn wants it back to destroy, Keegan wants it to blackmail Brinn.

As part of all these proceedings, Starkey’s wife, Patricia,  is kidnapped by Keegan, has an affair with him, but then is almost murdered by him to threaten Starkey into helping Keegan get the tape. Keegan gets the tape with Starkey’s coerced help.

Keegan and Brinn exchange tape for money. Turns out Brinn’s security force murdered Margaret in a case of “overenthusiasm” while looking for the Dvorak tape. Brinn’s tape is boobytrapped by Keegan and blows up a block from the exchange site when he tries to play it. Keegan gets his money but is blown up a block away in the other direction by the boobytrap that Brinn set for him when he opens the case of cash!

Starkey survives because Keegan wants him to write about what really happened to Margaret. The Starkeys get back together and apparently, having learned their lesson are going to live happily ever after – with each other.