The Usual Suspects (1995)

In director Bryan Singer's clever, and hip, plot-twisting, film-noirish, mystery heist thriller (with a sharp and smart script by Christopher McQuarrie) - it has continued to be a popular cult favorite. Its major theme of manipulative deception was designed to fool the audience, and to mislead and guide the actions of the cast of characters to do the criminal mastermind's bidding. The film's non-linear, manipulative and dense plot with convoluted twists highlighted a major mystery surrounding the identity of the most-talked about but unseen notorious crime lord character (Keyser Soze) - thus providing an intriguing and dynamic premise.

The taglines relating to the film's untrustworthy plot were:

• "In a world where nothing is what it seems you've got to look beyond...(THE USUAL SUSPECTS)"
• "FIVE CRIMINALS. ONE LINE UP. NO COINCIDENCE."

However, the film was criticized for being gimmicky and contrived due to its "unreliable narrator," and due to the fact that most of the flashback provided in the police office was fabricated. The suicidal mission at the pier was also orchestrated as a set-up to enable the elimination of the protagonist's crime competition by a figure that supposedly was a legend who "never existed," but was in fact right there in plain sight the whole time. [Spoiler: The English equivalent of the Turkish word "Soze" is "Verbal" - the nickname of one of the most unsuspecting main characters, thus identifying him as one and the same person.]

With a budget of $6 million, the film took in $23.3 million in revenue. The film's two Academy Award nominations were both Oscar-winners: Best Original Screenplay (McQuarrie) and Best Supporting Actor (Kevin Spacey).

• the film's main plot consisted of a lengthy questioning and interrogation session between two men for about 2 hours, before the criminal's bail was processed; much of the film was set in the borrowed office of LAPD police sergeant Jeff Rabin (Dan Hedaya) during a long story-telling session:
• Detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), a tough US Customs Agent and federal investigator; he had flown from NYC to Los Angeles for the questioning
• Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey), a manipulative, crippled (disabled, 'club-footed', or suffering from cerebral palsy), small-time, two-bit con-man; he had been granted immunity and was protected from prosecution for the many deaths at an LA dock including a docked ship's destruction, but still might face a weapons charge; during the interview, Kint often fumbled with a gold cigarette lighter
  [Note: In flashbacks, the hands of Soze were also often seen using a gold cigarette lighter (a major clue!)]
• according to Kint, he was the sole survivor of a group of five tough and savvy criminals (the ones on all the film's posters, known as the "usual suspects") who had been pressured by an unseen crime lord to visit the LA dock and eliminate the boss' criminal rivals
• Kujan encouraged Kint to weave a detailed story: "Convince me. Tell me every last detail"; Kint's tale was a long and convoluted story (seen in flashback) that stretched back to six weeks earlier; the five suspects were first introduced in an NYPD line-up; they were hauled in after a Queens, NY truck hijacking and gun parts shipment robbery:
  • Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a crooked ex-cop, now reformed and in the restaurant business, with lawyer girlfriend Edie Finneran (Suzy Amis)
  • Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), a cocky professional thief, a hot-headed entry man and sniper
  • Fred Fenster (Benicio del Toro), a flashy-dressing Latino who spoke in mangled English, also McManus' partner
  • Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), an explosives specialist and thuggish hijacker
  • Roger "Verbal" Kint, a limping hustler
• the fifth individual Kint appeared to be the outsider - he was the only one not shown being picked up by police, and in their holding cell, Kint was viewed as a stranger, a disabled man, and outsider by the others
• the 'random' group of five individuals was tried and found 'not guilty' - but afterwards, seeking revenge for being 'falsely accused', they went ahead and pulled off a robbery of a protective escort service (New York's "finest taxi service" run by over 50 corrupt NYPD officers) that was escorting a jewel smuggler; they pulled off a $3 million robbery of emeralds
• and then following the lucrative heist, they traveled to Los Angeles to sell or fence the loot through McManus' fence REDFOOT (Peter Greene); then, after Redfoot connected them to a second jewel heist opportunity, their second robbery attempt failed (when the jewels turned out to be synthetic heroin) and Kint was forced to shoot the jeweler in cold-blood and the four bodyguards were also eliminated
• afterwards, the group of five met with lawyer Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), the chief go-between for the mysterious Turkish crime lord named Keyser Soze; Kobayashi had arranged the second jewel heist, and explained how each of the five thieves had unwittingly 'stolen' from his boss Soze in the past; he admitted that he had deliberately arranged for them to be brought together earlier in the police line-up
• Kobayashi also told how the five suspects had been involved in stealing from or defrauding some of Soze's middlemen in his large criminal network (for crimes including theft of construction materials, the truck hijacking, and the defrauding of $62,000 from one of Soze's couriers); in order to compensate for Soze's major losses and to pay him back, the five thieves were now blackmailed - coerced to go on a mission to San Pedro Bay (LA) harbor to commit a huge $91 million cocaine heist (and destruction) of a drug shipment on a docked ship -- it would be an act of sabotage against Keyser Soze's own Argentinian drug-dealing competitors in the drug trade
• Kujan explained his own understanding of the attack on the docked boat: "There were no drugs on that boat. It was a hit. A suicide mission to whack out the one guy that could finger Keyser Soze. So Soze put some thieves to it. Men he knew he could march into certain death" [Note: According to Kujan, the attack on the boat was primarily designed to enable Kint (Soze in disguise) to get on the ship and eliminate the one Hungarian mobster (Arturo Marquez) who could recognize his identity.]
• once the group arrived at the dock, Hockney asked to know the language being spoken by the crew - Kint told him they were speaking Hungarian
• the weaselly, limping Kint was one of only two survivors of the fiery explosion and fire-fight massacre at the San Pedro harbor (the other survivor was badly-burned Hungarian mobster-terrorist Arkosh Kovash); the boat's explosion resulted in 27 deaths and the discovery of $91 million, but no cocaine was found; according to Kint, the last to die was the seriously-wounded Dean Keaton who was shot dead by the mysterious Keyser Soze; however, Detective Kujan doubted that Keaton had died at the dock that night
• there were many confessed truths, half-truths, double-crosses, and lies in Kint's convoluted tale about the botched raid - clearly a set-up - that he claimed he had witnessed and survived (it was very strange that no cocaine was found on the ship - was it mysteriously missing?)
• during their conversation, Kint discussed the central mystery surrounding the enigmatic, greatly-feared, legendary existence and character of Hungarian mobster and kingpin known as Keyser Soze - a semi-mythical, mysterious, cold-blooded "devil", and almost supernatural Hungarian crime lord and mastermind
• Kint told about Keyser Soze's early life and the first time he ever heard of Soze; he described how Soze returned home and found his family taken hostage (and his wife raped); to show his tremendous will-power and to intimidate his Hungarian Mafia rivals, he proceeded to murder his family and all but one of his Hungarian Mafia rivals (to tell others about Soze's ruthlessness); then, he slaughtered all of his many rivals, followed by his disappearance into the underground: ("The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist...and like that, he's gone. Underground.... Nobody's ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night"); from then on, Soze worked his criminal empire through underlings
• Soze appeared to have victimized the group of five thieves as an act of criminal misconduct by sending them to the pier (and joining them) to face a deadly shoot-out with an Argentinian rival gang; to force them to carry out his plan, Soze threatened that he had the families of the five men under surveillance (including Keaton's girlfriend Edie), and would brutally murder them if he was disobeyed; Fenster was shot and killed by Soze when he attempted to flee
• Kint claimed he witnessed the nighttime attack on the ship that concluded with an unseen, phantom assailant ("Keyser") killing those on board (including Hockney (shot), McManus (stabbed), and Keaton), and then igniting the ship on fire; it had been a vengeful set-up created by Soze/Kint to send everyone to the ship - to die; Soze's goal was to get onboard and "pull the trigger" on the only man who could identify him
• at the end of Kint's story, Kujan deduced: "Keaton was Keyser Soze" - the mastermind of everything, who had faked his death and deliberately left Verbal as a witness; Kujan had already been investigating corrupt ex-police officer Keaton for three years and suspected he was the kingpin; Kint disagreed, although Kujan was very sure: "The kind of man who can wrangle the wills of men like Hockney and McManus. The kind of man who could engineer a police line-up, for all these years of contacts in NYPD. The kind of man who could kill Edie Finneran. (pause) She was found yesterday in a hotel in Pennsylvania, shot twice in the head"; Kint continued to vehemently disagree: "No! No! No!...This is all bulls--t" [Note: Ironically, Soze/Kint had just killed Keaton's girlfriend off-screen.]
• after refusing to testify in court against Keaton and having him take the blame, the crippled Kint was released on bail; he collected a gold watch and gold lighter (a clue that was often associated with Soze!) before limping away from the police station
• the concluding plot twist, however, clearly revealed and resolved the true identity of Keyser Soze; Kujan simultaneously realized - upon breaking his coffee mug (with the logo for Kobayashi Porcelain) and other trivial clues - that Kint was, in fact, the greatly-feared, legendary criminal mastermind and kingpin Keyser Soze of Kint's own extraordinarily-fabricated story

Kobayashi Coffee Cup Clue
Kint (Kevin Spacey) Not Really Crippled

• as Kint left the station, his hand deformity and his limp suddenly disappeared from his stride; the police sketch artist's rendering of Soze's face (that was received on a fax in the office, from hospitalized Arkosh Kovash's description - he was the one man who knew Keyser Soze's identity!) confirmed that Soze was Kint
• to his stunned amazement, Kujan scanned the office's bulletin board and noticed that many of the elements of Kint's preposterous swindler story (about Kobayashi-Keyser Soze-Dean Keaton) were improvised from items behind Sgt. Rabin's desk in the borrowed office:
  • the coffee mug logo for Kobayashi was the same name as the blackmailing lawyer in Kint's account
  • the bulletin board was made by Quartet, a company in Skokie, Illinois, referred to in Kint's story as a "barbershop quartet" that he sang with
  • there was a picture of a wanted lady who was "orca fat" - with a list of her alias names on a wanted sheet - one of which was the name "REDFOOT" - one of Kint's fabricated characters ("Some guy in California, his name is Redfoot")
  • there was a vacation flyer for traveling to "Guatemala" ("A Winning Combination - Guatemala - The best buy for your client's vacation dollars") - Kint had said: "Back when I was pickin' beans in Guatemala, we used to make fresh coffee."
• out on the street after leaving the station, the "cripple" Kint was picked up in a black car by Kobayashi
• the film's last line was Kint's voice-over, words that he had spoken earlier - (he blew on his fingers, as if to say 'Poof!'): "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that, he's gone"