# The Usual Suspects



## Bender (May 16, 2010)

_"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."_



> Director Bryan Singer's labyrinthine crime drama centers on five career criminals (played by Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, and Stephen Baldwin) who meet after being rounded up for a standard police line-up. Upon their release, the men band together to pull off an intricate heist involving $3 million worth of emeralds. Their success brings them to the attention of the enigmatic Keyser Soze, an unseen, nefarious, and mythic underworld crime figure who coerces them into pulling off an important and highly dangerous job. The scenes that follow make THE USUAL SUSPECTS one of the most fascinating crime thrillers in cinema history. Working from the Oscar-winning screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Singer adroitly tells the complex story through flashbacks, cross-cutting, and voice-over narration. Such nimble handling of the intricacies of the nonlinear narrative adds to the suspense, leaving viewers on the edge of their seats until the clever, satisfying finale.
> 
> Singer's expertise in the technical aspects of filmmaking--his use of a dioptic filter to keep two close-up faces in focus, as well as his inventive use of six-frame step printing--helped him earn his reputation as a visually impressive and stylish director. Filled with excellent performances from veteran actors (Kevin Spacey won his first Academy Award for his breakthrough role as Verbal Kint), THE USUAL SUSPECTS placed Singer squarely on the cinematic map.



[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VPuXWtDx9g[/YOUTUBE]

Keyser Soze........


Greatest criminal in history


And this film the best movie ever made by MGM


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 16, 2010)

I like the film, as I'm rarely bothered by convoluted plots and it has enough redeeming qualities. But it's hardly the best movie ever made by MGM ffs!


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## Blackfish (May 23, 2010)

When I saw it I had already seen _Scary Movie_, which ruined the twist ending for me. =[ Pretty decent movie though.


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## Lamb (May 23, 2010)

erictheking said:


> I like the film, as I'm rarely bothered by convoluted plots and it has enough redeeming qualities. But it's hardly the best movie ever made by MGM ffs!



It's definitely up there. :/


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## Mikaveli (May 23, 2010)

I fucking love The Usual Suspects.


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## CrazyMoronX (May 24, 2010)

It has been too long since I saw this. I better re-watch and then we can discuss.


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 24, 2010)

Lamb said:


> It's definitely up there. :/


I'm sceptical of that. There must be enough great films in the entire MGM library to keep 'The Usual Suspects' rather far away from being 'the best MGM movie ever'. Even if it is 'up there' due to a surprisingly relatively small quantity of great films in there, I don't think that it would come close to that quality of greatness. For example, _Network_ and _2001_. I think they're in a different league.


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## Lamb (May 24, 2010)

erictheking said:


> I'm sceptical of that. There must be enough great films in the entire MGM library to keep 'The Usual Suspects' rather far away from being 'the best MGM movie ever'. Even if it is 'up there' due to a surprisingly relatively small quantity of great films in there, I don't think that it would come close to that quality of greatness. For example, _Network_ and _2001_. I think they're in a different league.



I'm not sure it doesn't. It's brilliantly well written, extremely well acted, well shot, and thoroughly engrossing to boot. Sure, as a thriller it might lose some rewatch value due to the twist, but overall it's not a film I would just flat out say is on a level lower than most MGM greats. It's easily the best film MGM has produced in the last 20 years, and most likely 30 years depending on how highly I decide to rate _Poltergeist_ and _My Favorite Year_. I'd say in a list of the top 20 films of MGM, it'd be hard for me to leave it out, admittedly, it might be at spot 20, but that's still high considering how many movies MGM has produced.


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## Deleted member 84471 (May 28, 2010)

Kevin Spacey was good in it. I don't think the other characters were compelling enough for it to be engaging throughout the whole thing. "Reservoir Dogs" is everything "The Usual Suspects" is, and more.


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## Hikawa (May 28, 2010)

Caelus said:


> That was our Class of 2005 school motto



What kind of fucked up school did you go to?  

Seriously, that is my favorite movie line ever.  Plenty of expletives.


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## Pain In The Ass (Nov 2, 2013)

Reviving the thread.

I had seen The Usual Suspects before and rated it 6/10 so after a few years when a friend of mine saw my rating, he persuaded me to rewatch the movie "because it can't be a 6/10".

Well I did yesterday. I might've been too harsh on it, so I've changed my rating to 7/10, but it's gonna stay that way because I have a serious problem with the plot. Tried to discuss it with the aforementioned friend but we didn't come to a consensus, so thought why not try NF, it's full of movie fans after all.

So let me get this straight: the movie does an excellent job at doing what it was supposed to do - show Spacey as the sly con who is always one step ahead of the police. That I don't doubt, but it's the aftermath that I'm curious about. Will put it in a spoiler because I'm basically spoiling the whole movie and there might be yet people who haven't seen it.


*Spoiler*: __ 



Basically the gist of the plot is that Spacey aka Kayser Soze gathers up a group of a few people and their job is to rob a ship of its coke, while in reality there's no coke but just a person aboard that ship who is the sole human being capable of identyfying who Kayser Soze really is. Thus, the people gathered for the job are meant to create a diversion while Soze goes and kills the man himself.

It all goes according to plan and in the end he disappears as the winner. BUT here's wherein lies my problem.

Soze went through all that trouble to kill that one person who could ID him, and it's supposed to be a win scenario for him, but in the end we see that the cops _finally_ learned Soze's true face. Doesn't that defeat its purpose? Go after the only man who could ID you and have the whole cop department learn of your existence afterwards? 

My friend said that it doesn't matter that the cops learned who he is, because he's already a goner. Well, if he's so good at being a goner, why did he bother to kill the ship guy anyway? If he could disappear without ever getting caught then he could just as well do it without killing the ship fella. 

Another argument he said is that he killed the only guy who could be used in court to pin him down. But then again, after the movie he's a goner even though the cops kno who he is now, so how would they find him and bring him to court if he decided to disappear?

He also said that cops being aware of his true face =/= a criminal being aware of his face, and that noone would trust the cops for Verbal Kint to be Soze if they posted a wanted poster. And that for Soze to disappear he must engage with some criminals/underground and if they knew who he is from the ship fella he'd have it much harder to get any room in movement, but if the cops post a wanted poster of him, noone will believe them and Soze will be able to roam free as much as he wants.

But then again, the burned Hungarian fella who drew Soze's face in the hospital didn't die, so yes, it's not just cops who know who Soze is, they can back it up with the Hungarian's testimony.

I think that's it from the top of my head.




Basically a tl;dr version is that Soze did succeed in executing his real mission, but in the end that only gave birth to a bigger threat to him than it was originally. If someone could clarify it for me, I'm all up for discussion


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## masamune1 (Nov 21, 2013)

Yes, Soze technically lost.

But why is that a problem? It's a win because his plan had gone awry from beginning- ideally he wouldn't have been in custody to begin with, but the cops showed up quicker than he expected (this might not have been outright stated, but it is inferred). So, his victory is the cops managed to capture the greatest criminal alive and he still got away. That they know his face is just another example of the cops slipping up, since presumably he can still change his identity even if he'd rather kill someone first. 

But thinking that the aftermath of the film is the bad guy running for dear life isn't a wrong way to look at the ending. Part of the reason the film is so popular is precisely all the questions it raises, including the possibility that everything we have been told is a lie since, after all, the narrator is not exactly trustworthy. For all we know almost the entire movie could have been made up.


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## Maffy the Love Doctor (Dec 18, 2013)

Love this movie! Keyser Soze is one of my all time favorite movie villains.


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## Bender (Dec 18, 2013)

@Pain in the ass and Masamune1

Actually Soze won. 

You guys ever see the show "The Wire"?  Familiar with the character "The Greek"? The reason why he has karma Houdini all over him is because




*Spoiler*: __ 



he has immunity from prosecution. You can't take away the immunity of someone who was an asset to a criminal case.




Also Pain, I agree with your friend that you're being far too harsh on Usual Suspects. For one, it's ending was one of the most unique and rarest type during its time. To quote tvtropes it created the trope "The ending changes everything" and puts a spin on the perspective of viewers upon re-watching the film.

For gangster films that's a rarity. Now I haven't seen Reservoir Dogs but I predict it's everything that was similar to Pulp Fiction. Perhaps had more in-depth themes of gangsters and so-on. Usual. Suspects still deserves it's kudos for showing an iconic character like Keyser Soze who is a figure that is able to terrify criminals even more than law enforcement and their own ever did.


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