Preceded by short:Hello, Hello, Hello (David Thewlis, U.K., 1995). An unlikely encounter between a sardonic policeman and a woman artist scavenging for materials. (11 mins, Color, 16mm)A comedy/ thriller inspired by paranoid 1930s Hitchcock, complete with framed antihero, breathtakingly rapid-fire dialogue, and classical Macguffin, Divorcing Jack unfurls in a fictitious Northern Ireland undergoing a peaceful, promising election campaign followed by everyone except dishevelled reporter Dan Starkey (David Thewlis), who whiles away his workdays obliviously guzzling beer on a park bench. When a random romantic fling leads to murder, however, Starkey finds himself with a murder rap, a secret code he can't understand, and a death warrant from two rival political factions. Veering wildly from slapstick comedy to jarring violence, from chase scenes to IRA rubouts, the film makes few statements about the Troubles but instead rests on its slickly tailored narrative and Thewlis's stupendous, frantic command of dialogue. Spewing forth phrases like a sewer-mouthed Shakespeare, lurching about with his gangly, addled appearance, he memorably captures the forgotten, Cagneyesque craft of being perfectly, steadily, and completely insane.-Jason Sanders