The Usual Suspects

Boasting petty criminal characters conceived so brilliantly they achieve near-mythological status, The Usual Suspects is known for riveting suspense and action, an intriguing plot line and a jaw- dropping twist at the end. It also features some of the most memorable lines of the 1990s: "How do you shoot the devil in the back--what if you miss?" The characters, Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey), Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) and Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite) have real character details and cues.

The film is set in the aftermath of a ship fire that totally burns the cargo and crew. Though meek and disabled, Verbal is the only survivor to walk away from the incident unscathed. He is taken into custody and grilled by the police. Brilliantly played in a characteristic, understated style that earned Spacey an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Verbal is cleared and allowed to leave. But before he can go, agent Kujan from US Customs shows up to interrogate him. Kujan is trying to build a case against Keaton and he wants Verbal to testify in exchange for immunity. Verbal refuses, but Kujan still bullies Verbal into recounting his story of Keaton, McManus, Fenster and Hockney, leading up to the explosion on the ship.

What follows is a fantastic yarn of lies and half-truths sprinkled within the facts of the case. It is all masterfully portrayed as a series of flashbacks while Verbal and Kujan sip coffee and talk in the LA police station. The story begins six weeks earlier in New York City as Verbal and the other four criminals are brought in to stand side-by-side in a police lineup. None of them are formally charged with a crime, and there are indications Keaton has actually gone straight prior to the roundup. But before they are released, the five hatch a plan to get revenge on the corrupt NYPD and make a large sum of money in the process by robbing a police-protected jewel smuggler and leaking news of the police involvement to the press. Keaton is reluctant and must be coaxed into it with the promise that no one will be killed in the heist. He agrees and the quintet pulls off the robbery to perfection. The acting and writing take chances that pay off, with each actor fully immersing himself in his role. Del Toro creates a uniquely colorful persona in his portrayal of Fenster, Baldwin conveys a reckless abandon and lust for violence, Pollak shows steely courage and resolve, Byrne is a complex mesh of toughness with motives pulling him in all directions. Each actor is at the top of his game.

The five criminals go to Los Angeles to lay low in the aftermath of the New York heist. There, they are enticed into another robbery that is also supposed to involve no killing. Unfortunately, this LA heist goes horribly wrong. As Verbal recounts this carnage, its aftermath and the growing problems and hostility in the crew, agent Kujan receives a tip from one of his colleagues who has a survivor pulled from the water near the charred wreckage of the ship. The witness is badly burned and cannot speak English, but insists that the man responsible for the destruction of life and property on the ship is named Kaiser Soze.

Whether it is attributable to lies in Verbal's yarn or odd casting decisions, several characters in The Usual Suspects add to the film's mystique. Chief among these is the Irish Postlethwaite cast as the Japanese Kobayashi. There is a strong clue at the end that the name Kobayashi is used solely to mislead Kujan. But Kobayashi is not the only instance of a character's name failing to match his appearance. Another example is McManus' contact in LA, Redfoot, which one would expect to be the name of a Native American. But Redfoot appears to be caucasian. Again, at the end there is an indication that Verbal used Redfoot to avoid giving Kujan a real name. Strange ethnic inconsistencies crop up constantly. Kaiser Soze is said to be Turkish, possibly with a German father. These mixed-up character portraits add a layer of complexity to the plot, but one must always consider the source, Verbal Kint, and his motives.

The dynamic between Kujan and Verbal itself is pure entertainment. A kind of cat-and-mouse game, nuances are thrown into the proceedings that make it more interesting and add depth to the characters. Even the way the interrogation is filmed is unique. Verbal didn't achieve his nickname for no reason. He knows how to run his mouth and Kujan has a difficult challenge in corralling him. Underlying the interrogation is Kujan's suspicion of Keaton and his belief that Keaton manipulated Verbal. But Verbal is hard to pin down and Kujan occasionally resorts to bully tactics. But who is Kaiser Soze? Did he orchestrate the police lineup in New York, and pull all the strings ever since? Is the cargo of the ship drugs or only human cargo? Why did Verbal survive unharmed while so many others did not? Did Keaton really die, as Verbal insists, or did he slip away, as Kujan believes? Is Verbal telling the truth? Much is revealed in the final moments of the film, which wash over the viewer like an enormous wave of recognition. Snippets of dialogue from earlier in the film are montaged over the complex score, providing spine-tingling clues about exactly what part of Verbal's yarn was fact and what was fiction. The final snippet of dialogue, followed by a fortissimo string finale is especially powerful: "and like that...he was gone."

"The Usual Suspects" is a complicated puzzle of a movie that I bet you can't watch just once. The film deals with five career crooks who have big plans after they are all brought together in a police lineup. However, their mayhem is interrupted by a mysterious character named Kaiser Sose who plans to eliminate all five of the crooks after they all crossed him in various ways during their checkered pasts. An amazing original screenplay and tight direction keep up a substantial amount of tension throughout. Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, and Chazz Palminteri all give top-notch performances. But it is Kevin Spacey (in an Oscar-winning part) that makes "The Usual Suspects" work on all levels. This part put him in a higher class of actors and can be compared to Robert DeNiro's star-making job in "The Godfather, Part II". 5 stars out of 5.

One day in a bookshop, I flipped through a book entitled: "the movies of the nineties" and this movie wasn't included! How can a book specialized in cinema skip such a milestone of the last decade? Any movie buff, any cinema critic must have considered the nineties a fruitful era for the American thriller. According to one's tastes, some will say that the best thriller of the nineties is "Silence of the Lambs" (1991). For others it will be "Pulp Fiction" (1994) while others will praise to the skies "Se7en" (1995). For me, the pinnacle is this present movie, "the Usual Suspects" (1995) with its staggering story (to put it mildly). It's a sensational debut for Bryan Singer which enabled to put him on the map. With a little help from his accomplice Christopher McQuarrie, he signed an unparalleled gem in the landscape of the American thriller, even the whole cinema.

The average viewer who watches "the Usual Suspects" for the first time might think that the whole crew concocted him a meandering story with as a leading thread, Spacey's convoluted story. At the end of the projection, he may feel puzzled and will probably wish to watch the movie a second time. He won't regret it and Singer and McQuarrie will rejoice at it. Their masterwork gains by several repeated viewings to appreciate the subtleties of a rich movie with a convoluted construction which will take its seemingly definitive form in the five last minutes. To watch "the Usual Suspects" is like gathering the pieces of an intriguing puzzle, a little like any other suspenseful movie but in the case of Singer's flick, one will never really be able to completely end it. So many things happen in less than two hours that we are never really sure of what we watch and this is reinforced by a breathtaking unexpected twist at the end which makes our assumptions falter. Singer and McQuarrie take a mischievous delight in taking the viewer in their nebulous scenario and to follow it according to Spacey's declarations and it's obvious that they raise more questions than answers. It's up to the viewer to make his imagination work and to bring his thoughts on the film. This is what inspires its pernicious charm.

From Spacey's story, the authors developed a top quality script, set with clockwork precision. Singer's directorial style virtually evolutes on the razor's edge and conveys an increasing tension. It is filled with ingenious visual ideas and served by fluid camera movements. Singer was in his early thirties when he shot his film but it presents the signs of a seasoned author. There's also a tight editing and a unsettling score which cement the movie in its place of winner. More remarkable, the authors pull off with gusto to increase the audience's curiosity throughout the film in spite of a somewhat deliberate confusion and the interest won't weaken until the end which constitute the apex: an unexpected twist which will leave the audience speechless once they understood it. In Singer's flick, it doesn't disappoint because there are little but noticeable visual and verbal clues which justify it. However, it has something unsettling. We believe that we are at the end of the maze but there's more to the picture than meets the eye. Maybe this "coup de theatre" veils one more truth. Maybe also the shrewdest ones will have guessed it but the result is the same for any viewer: Singer puts a baffled spectator in his pocket.

Singer and Quarrie show a perfect master in the domain of the film noir: an ominous atmosphere, nocturnal scenes which stay rooted in the mind and a deep psychology of certain characters which give more substance to the film. Considering the last point, the character of Gabriel Byrne is the most interesting one: a former crooked cop who seemingly redeemed himself in catering but caught up by his past and forced to come back to work. I personally think that Byrne is the stand-out of the topflight cast the movie boasts. But don't neglect the other members. Kevin Spacey pocketed a deservedly Oscar in 1996 and the rest of the cast doesn't stay on the bench. Maybe Singer grants a little shallow attention to the three others baddies in the gang but in a way it's necessary to underscore the fact that they're lousy gangsters embroiled in a infernal spiral and unable to perceive what lies beneath all this. Pete Postlewhaite and Chazz Palminteri make their scenes count too.

A riveting storytelling, a painstaking flash-back, a tight and first-class directing, a thoughtful twist, a topnotch cast, "the Usual Suspects" includes almost everything a director would sell his soul for. Everything contributes to make it a stalwart model in the suspenseful movie and the whole cinema. After the first vision, be prepared for mental gymnastics and for a second screening...

The interrogation, the lineup, and the story telling are all intricate to this film and really is what makes this a great movie and a 90's classic.

The lineup scene is iconic and absolutely a fan favourite no doubt. Each characters personality is defined in that one sentence.

Kevin Spacey gives a heck of a performance and for me it's definitely his best.

I couldn't help but set rather high expectations for 'The Usual Suspects' as I went into watching this. I knew this was no action movie or any of the crap we get nowadays. This was true cinema! I was excited 'The Usual Suspects' is a mystery film about what cargo was on board the ship when it was destroyed and the events leading up to it as we are told from the only known survivor of that accident.

Around 45-50 minutes into the movie, I was starting to find myself a bit tired and thought the movie may perhaps have dragged along just a bit. I was becoming rather disappointed. Then the film truly began to change in such a way that I find it rather hard to explain. The characters began to get a little more entertaining, the pacing certainly began to pick up, the dialogue was getting more interesting and overall, I was more excited.

Then comes the amazing final twenty minutes with the plot twist and the story finally closing in perfectly, making the story more understandable. However, the final 5 minutes of the movie are some of the best moments of movie ever made and that is the ultimate plot twist which surprised the hell out of me! It was a cheering end to what ended as a great movie and a movie I would be more than happy to check out again and again! A-