The Usual Suspects (1995)

A boat has been destroyed, criminals are dead, and the key to this mystery lies with the only survivor and his twisted, convoluted story beginning with five career crooks in a seemingly random police lineup.

Director:

Bryan Singer

Writer:

Christopher McQuarrie

Stars:

Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey

Top 250 #26 | Won 2 Oscars. Another 29 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Stephen Baldwin	...	Michael McManus
Gabriel Byrne	...	Dean Keaton
Benicio Del Toro	...	Fred Fenster
Kevin Pollak	...	Todd Hockney
Kevin Spacey	...	Roger 'Verbal' Kint
Chazz Palminteri	...	Dave Kujan, US Customs
Pete Postlethwaite	...	Kobayashi
Giancarlo Esposito	...	Jack Baer, FBI
Suzy Amis	...	Edie Finneran
Dan Hedaya	...	Sgt. Jeffrey 'Jeff' Rabin
Paul Bartel	...	Smuggler
Carl Bressler	...	Saul Berg
Phillipe Simon	...	Fortier
Jack Shearer	...	Renault
Christine Estabrook	...	Dr. Plummer

Storyline

Following a truck hijack in New York, five conmen are arrested and brought together for questioning. As none of them is guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police. The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt. It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze?

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Plot Keywords:

criminal | suspect | revenge | explosion | hijacking | 

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Taglines:

Five Criminals . One Line Up . No Coincidence

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Genres:

Crime | Mystery | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and a substantial amount of strong language

Details

Official Sites:

MGM Studios [us]

Country:

USA Germany

Language:

English Hungarian Spanish French

Release Date:

16 August 1995 (USA)

Also Known As:

Die üblichen Verdächtigen

Filming Locations:

City Hall - 200 N. Spring Street, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$6,000,000 (estimated)

Gross:

£2,503,343 (UK) (15 September 1995)

Company Credits

Production Co:

PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, Spelling Films International, Blue Parrot

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Composer/editor John Ottman provided the breathing voice at the foreground from a shot behind the ropes, and also the gloved hands in the shot of Keyzer dropping the cigarette on the floor. Keyzer's foot stomping the cigarette was Director Bryan Singer's foot.

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Goofs

When the two police officers pick up the emerald smuggler at the airport, their squad car number on the license plate is 2485. Later when they are hit from behind by the van and are robbed the the squad car number on the side has changed to 6423.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Keyser Soze: How you doing Keaton?
Keaton: I can't feel my legs... Keyser.

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Crazy Credits

The editor, John Ottman, edited the movie on film. He felt that all the editing done electronically at the time was horrible because all the good editors were still working on film (which is much more difficult). Because of this he thought about putting "Edited on a piece of s*** Steenbeck" at the end of the credits, but instead settled for the more subtle line "Edited on film." Tim Robbins was directing 'Dead Man Walking' at the time and heard about John's idea, which sparked that film's credit ending of "This film was edited on old machines."

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Connections

Referenced in Doctor Dolittle (1998)

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Soundtracks

"Le sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir"
Performed by Jon Kull
Music by Claude Debussy

User Reviews

Better than the sum of its parts

The Usual Suspects is two movies in one. Enjoyable the first time you watch it, even more enjoyable the second time round. The first viewing asks questions that are answered in an `I could kick myself' moment in the final few minutes, and the second viewing is interesting because when you know the answers, the film becomes that much clearer. It requires a certain amount of commitment, though. Be warned, if you stop concentrating for a moment then the remaining running time of the movie will be spent trying to figure out how what you missed has lead to what you are now watching.

It concerns the story of five felons brought in by the police for a line-up and how those same felons reluctantly end up working for the mysterious and ghost-like Keyser Soze: a legend among the criminal fraternity, a man who no-one has seen and lived, a man so dangerous that he is thought to be the devil himself.you get the idea. The plot is rather intricate so I shan't bother to explain it here but it does rather make me think that Christopher McQuarrie, the writer, kept going to the office in the morning with yet another complexity to add that he thought up the night before. That's not to say it doesn't work, far from it, but it does leave you reeling from the sheer amount of information and names thrown at you from the offset.

Gabriel Byrne is good, but not flawless, as the tortured Dean Keaton who is torn between his career as a criminal and his forlorn attempt at trying to go straight, but his relationship with uptown lawyer Edie Finneran (Suzy Amis) is badly explored and I never felt it gave motive enough for his actions throughout the movie. Kevin Spacey is wonderful as the crippled Roger 'Verbal' Kint and is effective with the results both cunning and tragic. The real star of the movie, however, is a strangely accented Pete Postlethwaite as Kobayashi, supposedly Keyser Soze's right-hand man. He effortlessly plays a character of terrible coolness and poker-faced efficiency leading the dance that the rest of the characters must follow.

Director Bryan Singer has done well to bring such a momentous and involved screenplay to life and any gripes I may have cannot detract from the fact that the film, as a whole, is much better than the sum of its parts.