The Usual Suspects (1995)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  7 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: Christopher McQuarrie and Bryan Singer's 'The Usual Suspects,' is a cleverly plotted crime caper with a masterful twist.
  
  Suspect Roger "Verbal," Kint (Kevin Spacey) is interviewed about a huge shoot-out on a boat, and he recounts via narrated flashback how he ended up there. He met four other guys in a line-up for an unexplained crime, and, afterwards, they dragged the infamous mobster of the group Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) back from retirement to plan a heist. When this went wrong they found themselves indebted to a faceless international criminal called Keyser Soze, and Verbal posits that Soze sent the five on a drug smuggling job to ambush them in the shoot out.
  
  That's an entertaining enough story with just enough mystery to keep you hooked, but the final twist is what leaves you with a smile on your face, as it turns out Verbal is Soze, and that he engineered the shoot out then made up the entire story to get off scot free.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: With little character depth or thematic intrigue, it is very much a story concerned with what happened rather than why or how. Of course, a plot driven script isn't an inherent issue, but it is slightly frustrating that some of the details are left unexplained.
  
  VERDICT: 'The Usual Suspects,' is a fun, surface-level "what happened," story elevated by a great twist.

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