The Usual Suspects (1995)

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Directed by Bryan Singer.

Starring Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Kevin Spacey.

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Near the end of The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, in his Oscar-winning performance as crippled con man Roger "Verbal" Kint, says, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." This may be the key line in this story; the farther along the movie goes, the more one realizes that not everything is quite what it seems, and what began as a conventional whodunit turns into something quite different. A massive explosion rips through a ship in a San Pedro, CA, harbor, leaving 27 men dead, the lone survivor horribly burned, and 91 million dollars' worth of cocaine, believed to be on board, mysteriously missing. Police detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) soon brings in the only witness and key suspect, "Verbal" Kint. Kint's nickname stems from his inability to keep his mouth shut, and he recounts the events that led to the disaster. Five days earlier, a truckload of gun parts was hijacked in Queens, NY, and five men were brought in as suspects: Kint, hot-headed hipster thief McManus (Stephen Baldwin), ill-tempered thug Hockney (Kevin Pollak), flashy wise guy Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a cop gone bad now trying to go straight in the restaurant business. While in stir, someone suggests that they should pull a job together, and Kint hatches a plan for a simple and lucrative jewel heist. Despite Keaton's misgivings, the five men pull off the robbery without a hitch and fly to Los Angeles to fence the loot. Their customer asks if they'd be interested in pulling a quick job while out West; the men agree, but the robbery goes horribly wrong and they soon find themselves visited by Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), who represents a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze. Soze's violent reputation is so infamous that he's said to have responded to a threat to murder his family by killing them himself, just to prove that he feared no one. When Kobayashi passes along a heist proposed by Soze that sounds like suicide, the men feel that they have little choice but to agree. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

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Reviews and discussions

An Unusually Good Film
by JakeStevens in JakeStevens Blog

loved it.

Was this review helpful? [Be the first to tell us!]
"I'm usually very wary of films with a "mind-bending twist" at the end of the film, as they tend to be manipulative and misleading throughout, only to be told at the end that what you saw wasn't REALLY what you saw. Another close instance of "bad" filmmaking is when a character wakes up to find out that everything we've just witnessed was a dream. You feel cheated, and it's become a tired cliche when a suitable ending can't be found. Fortunately, this was not the case with The Usual Suspects, and even in subsequent views, the film holds up under close scrutiny and doesn't lose any of its verve. Worthy of all the accolades heaped upon it, DEFINITELY watch this film sometime in your life, preferably before someone ruins it for you. " [More]

Re:Best Heist films and also th ...
by Jymkata in Top 5

liked it.

"There are a lot of movies that I love that have heists in them but they are usually a means to an end and the bulk of the film usually deals with the fallout of said heist. Straight up heist films I love are : Jean Pierre Melville's stylish and masterful Le Cercle Rouge and Un Flic. The Hot Rock and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (good call, Rizzo) are two of my favorite seventies Heist movies. One Heist film I just love is The Great Train Robbery - there is one perfectly choreographed scene that involves a lanky Donald Sutherland (he was so awesome in these quirky roles) and an impossible-to-get key that is a site to behold. Just recently I saw The Brinks Job and The Day They Robbed The Bank of England on TCM and I liked them both (but i do like Peter Falk and Aldo Rey respectively so that might have something to do with it). Finally, even though it is not a heist film I love what DePalma did in Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise's famous spy scenes. DePalma always cou ... " [More]

Trusting Twists (spoiler warning)
by circuitsnake in circuitsnake Blog

is neutral about it.

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"Ok, so I just finished watching Swimming Pool which, like other films before it has a twist ending in which you realize that the past 100+ minutes might have been false. I did not enjoy this twist, while with the Usual Suspects (a film which I do still have issues with), you always feel like you are being manipulated, I felt that Swimming Pool doesn't accomplish the same feeling. For those not in the know and don't care about spoilers, Swimming Pool is the tale of an author who can't concentrate on writing, who decides to take a vacation in France, which is interrupted by the sex-loving daughter of her publisher. When the daughter kills a man who won't have sex with her, the story turns into a very similar looking murder mystery than that of the authors books. Unfortunately you realize that the character of the daughter is fake and that for the past hour and a half we have been watching the author write her book. The final twist is what I don't like about this ... " [More]

Humiliating Movie Deaths
by marymcilwain in Dollar Video Curator

liked it.

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"The power of film. You recognize it when you see it. Or feel it. Quotes that stick with you, or a glistening tear rolling down a beautiful cheek. A soaring score that tugs at your heart strings, or a heroic death, a sacrifice that was made for the good of all humankind. Eh. What of the overlooked? The filler parts of the film, meant to amuse, move the story’s plot or suspense along, or to act as comic relief? For every poignant film death forever memorialized on the big screen, an extra, a bad guy or some other lesser character has to take one for the team. The yang to the hero’s yin. The black to the white of your starlet’s blank, emotionless eye. Let us look at some of the unfortunate sacrifices that have been made for the good of the plot, and share a moment of silence for these unfortunates. Raiders of the Lost Ark - The Egyptian guy with the sword. He comes out swinging with the biggest, shiniest, sharpest sword any of you fools have ever seen. Poor guy. For all ... " [More]

Humiliating Movie Deaths
by marymcilwain in Dollar Video Curator

liked it.

Usual Suspects
by JimBell in JimBell Blog

liked it.

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"The Usual Suspects was on my list of favourite movies of all-time, so I rewatched it. Although it is well-crafted, I thought much less of it the second time around. I—and many others—thought the movie was so clever when it came out, but its essence is disappointingly simple: The entire story is a fiction created by “Verbal” Kint in a policeman’s office. So what do we know “actually” happened. Five guys were in a line up in New York, they went to California, they attacked and burned a vessel in the harbour and only Verbal survived. Everything else was a masterful screen for the fact that Verbal was, far from being a petty con artist, a master criminal who wanted to get at a guy on the boat who was going to testify against him. The problem, I think, is where the cleverness lies. Because one of the cops recognizes a minute too late that Verbal has pulled the names of this characters off the messy bulletin board in the office, we are amazed and ... " [More]

Re: Range of Characters
by Risselada in Range of Character

loved it.

"Seven, American Beauty, The Usual Suspects, and L.A. Confidential. And I saw the latter two so long ago I cannot even remember them much at all. I guess I've just seen enough bits of other movie's he's in and trailers, and maybe even quotes and live appearances that he just always seemed to have that smugness to him. I remember the trailer for that Bobby Darin movie and he seemed like the biggest smartass around.I think I probably just watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas too often that Johnny Depp has become Hunter S. Thompson to me.I can't say I've seen enough Cary Grant movies to make a fair assessment either. Maybe I was just repeating something I heard someone else say about him. Yeah I didn't say anything about DeNiro, although I actually don't think he has a huge range either. He always hold a lot of himself in every role. But I guess I see his different roles not as different people, but more as what if Robert DeNiro had grown up in the sit ... " [More]

Kevin Spacey
by pippin06 in Walk of Fame

loved it.

"I can't tell you how much I love Kevin in every film he's in practically. He makes the film crackle with electricity, even if it's mediocre, (like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which wasn't my favorite). My favorite Kevin Spacey performances are, hands down, his Oscar winning performances in The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, two of my all-time favorite films. These characters are totally different. Verbal Kint, the (seemingly) meek idiot savant who's actually the most masterful manipulator the world has ever known. And Lester Burnham, the (seemingly) mediocre suburbanite hitting his midlife crisis with a vengeance. Anything he does immediately draws your eyes because he's so good, your disbelief is instantly suspended. He's a favoritest of mine too (see the Meryl Streep convo). Anyone else want to comment? " [More]

Usual Suspects Anything but Usual
by davisfreeberg in Davis Freeberg's DVD AllStars

loved it.

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"This has to be one of my all time favorite movies. When it first came out I had a job as a projectionist and have seen the film at least 25 times. There is so much depth to the acting, the filming and the entire cinematical piece that it's become a classic to me. My only complaint is that we haven't seen a sequel. " [More]

Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

liked it.

A slick triumph of casting and wordplay, The Usual Suspects was one of the most fiendishly intricate American films of the 1990s. Relentlessly stylish and growing more convoluted by the frame, the film invited its audience to take part in the confusion, to attempt to discern illusion from reality as if watching a magician's act. What makes The Usual Suspects remarkable is that fact and fiction never evolve into distinct entities, entwining in an almost indiscernible jumble to baffle the viewer. Like the all-important but (largely) unseen Keyser Soze, Suspects' genius rested in holding its audience hostage to the intangible, making it equally impossible to believe what you've seen or dismiss what you haven't. In turn, the film is shamelessly manipulative, demanding the audience's complete involvement and undivided attention; a bathroom break carries the risk of losing the plot entirely. As the men caught up in the film's labyrinthine intrigue, Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, and Stephen Baldwin fit their roles perfectly, demonstrating an ensemble casting coup. Spacey, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Verbal Kint, is particularly impressive, managing to be pathetic, off-handedly irreverent, and cunning all at once. The qualities on display in his performance make him the poster child for the film's overall tone: shifty, garrulous, and altogether not to be trusted, Spacey's Kint embodies the film's compulsive, charming will to deception. Director Bryan Singer handles his characters and the film's many twists with the ease of a devious master puppeteer, mixing liberal doses of film noir, humor, and intrigue with refreshing audacity. The result was one of the most accomplished thrillers of the decade, a mystery whose wild manipulations came courtesy of a director whose hands were very tightly gripped around the controls. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide

Tags: favorite , keyser-soze , twist , mystery , heist
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