The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects; crime, USA / Germany, 1995; D: Bryan Singer, S: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Giancarlo Esposito, Dan Hedaya, Suzy Amis

A ship explodes in the harbor San Pedro. 27 people are found dead and only two alive: a wounded Hungarian mobster and Verbal Kint, who suffers from cerebral palsy. In a police station, Verbal is questioned by agent Kujan and tells him what happened: 6 weeks ago, he and four other crooks—Keaton, an ex-cop, Fenster, McManus and Hockney—were brought for a routine police lineup. They became friends and partnered to committed a risky, but profitable coup where they robbed corrupt police officers who escort drug smugglers. Just when they were on vacation, they were contacted and forced by the proxy of mysterious crime boss Keyser Sooze to rob a ship involved in a 91 million $ cocaine transfer, but they didn't find any cocaine and were killed—Sooze just used them to kill a witness on that ship. Verbal is released, but then Kujan figures he was actually Sooze.

Despite low expectations, independent crime film "The Usual Suspects" became hyped and achieved a huge surprise success. It suffers from a weak 20-minute start that takes a long time for its complicated set-up, but thanks to the slowly burning fuse of intrigue it manages to lift itself up quickly and please in almost every aspect, creating an intelligent mystery-crime texture. Despite its top notch tangle and legendary plot twist at the end, the film is still just a very straight-forward crime film that depends on its essence rather than the multi-layered story. The screenplay is mathematically precise, while the direction by Bryan Singer completes it in a solid way, since several scenes are brilliant—for instance, it starts off with a cool opening scene in which we find Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) sitting wounded on a ship, he lights up a match, lights his cigarette, and then throws the match on a trail of gasoline on the deck, so the fire is heading towards the main storage, but just then someone pours water from above and extinguishes the fire before reaching it; the detail of the broken coffee cup with the title "Kobayashi" is exquisite—whereas the scary stories about the mysterious, unknown gangster boss Keyser Sooze in the film seem almost too exaggerated—in one of them, a couple of Hungarian mobsters stormed into his house and took his wife and kids as hostages in order to force him to give them a share of his territory, but he proved to be so tough he himself shot his family first and then mobsters—which all add to the mystical touch of his reputation, while the whole film is told from the perspective of the main character, Verbal, making the viewer wonder if all the stories there are just a lie, reminding a little bit of "Rashomon". The movie won several awards for excellent supporting actor Kevin Spacey, who had a very good year, since he even starred in another quality crime film in 1995, "Se7en". Maybe it all relies too much on the powerful plot twist at the end, but every piece leading to it is simply clever and well thought out.

Grade:+++