The Usual Suspects (1995)

Cast:

• Bryan Singer, Director

• Christopher McQuarrie, Writer

• Newton Thomas Sigel, Cinematography

• John Ottman, Music/Editing

• Kevin Spacey as Roger "Verbal" Kint

• Gabriel Byrne as Dean Keaton

• Chazz Palminteri as Agent Dave Kujan

• Stephen Baldwin as Michael McManus

• Benicio del Toro as Fred Fenster

• Kevin Pollak as Todd Hockney

• Pete Postlethwaite as Kobayashi

• Suzy Amis as Edie Finneran

• Giancarlo Esposito as FBI Agent Jack Baer

• Dan Hedaya as Sergeant Jeff Rabin

Background:

• The Usual Suspects was released on August 16, 1995.

• On a budget of $6 million, the film would gross $23 million to finish as the #75 film at the 1995 worldwide box office.

• While most critics enjoyed the film, those who didn't were quite loud including Roger Ebert in their dislike for the film.

• Nevertheless, the film won both of the Oscars it was nominated for: Best Supporting Actor (Spacey) and Original Screenplay (McQuarrie).

• In 2008, the AFI revealed its "10 Top 10", and The Usual Suspects was acknowledged as the tenth-best mystery film. Verbal Kint was voted the #48 villain in "AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains" in June 2003.

• Entertainment Weekly cited the film as one of the "13 must-see heist movies".

• Empire ranked Keyser Söze #69 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll.

• In August 2016, James Charisma of Paste ranked The Usual Suspects among Kevin Spacey's greatest film performances.

• In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #35 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.

• The Usual Suspects holds an 87% among critics on RT, a 76 on Metacritc, and a 4.1/5 on Letterboxd.

Plot Summary: The Usual Suspects is a crime thriller about five criminals who meet during a police lineup and decide to work together on a heist. After the heist goes wrong, they find themselves being manipulated by a mysterious and dangerous crime boss named Keyser Söze. As the story unfolds, one of the criminals, Verbal Kint, tells the police what happened. Through flashbacks, we learn about betrayal, revenge, and the power of fear. The movie builds to a shocking twist at the end, where everything we thought we knew is turned upside down. It’s a smart, suspenseful film that keeps viewers guessing until the very last scene.

Did You Know:

• The idea for this movie started only with the concept of a movie poster of five men in a lineup.

• Christopher McQuarrie's inspiration for the character of Keyser Soze was a real-life murderer by the name of John List, who murdered his family and then disappeared for 17 years.

• All of the characters' names stem from the staff members of the law firm and the detective agency that Christopher McQuarrie worked at when he was young. Originally, Keyser Soze was supposed to have the name Keyser Sume, named after Christopher McQuarrie's old boss. He allowed his old boss to read the script who did not want to be associated with an inherently evil villain, so requested a change be made.

• Kevin Spacey had been so impressed with Bryan Singer's first film, Public Access (1993), that he told him he wanted to be in his next film when he met the young director, after a screening at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival.

• In the "making of" documentary, both Stephen Baldwin and Kevin Pollak acknowledge that their long-standing feud began on the set of this film. Though neither actor directly states what caused their animosity towards each other, Pollak does mention that Baldwin, in an attempt to stay in character as MacManus, would go around acting tough and sometimes bully the other actors. Baldwin does admit that he was bullying towards Pollak on film (their numerous "standoff" confrontations with each other on screen).

• Bryan Singer described the film as Double Indemnity (1944) meets Rashomon (1950), and said that it was made "so you can go back and see all sorts of things you didn't realize were there the first time. You can get it a second time in a way you never could have the first time around." He also compared the film's structure to Citizen Kane (1941) (which also contained an interrogator and a subject who is telling a story) and the criminal caper The Anderson Tapes (1971).

• **In December 2017, amid a flood of sexual misconduct allegations against Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne said that, at one point during shooting, production was shut down for two days because Spacey made unwanted sexual advances toward a younger actor. In June 2018, Kevin Pollak claimed that the person in question was actually the then-boyfriend of director Bryan Singer.

Best Performance: Christopher McQuarrie (Writer)/Kevin Spacey (Verbal)

Best Secondary Performance: Kevin Spacey (Verbal)/Gabriel Byrne (Keaton)

Most Charismatic Award: Gabriel Byrne (Keaton)/Kevin Spacey (Verbal)

Best Scene:

• Lineup

• Emeralds Heist

• Kobayashi

• Who is Keyser Soze?

• And then he was....gone.

Favorite Scene: Kobayashi

Most Indelible Moment: And then he was....gone.

In Memorium:

• Hulk Hogan, 71, American Hall of Fame professional wrestler (WWF, WCW) and actor (Suburban Commando, Rocky 3)

• Rose Leiman Goldemberg, 97, American playwright and screenwriter (The Burning Bed, Stone Pillow)

• Tom Lehrer, 97, American singer-songwriter (songs, “The Masochism Tango”, “The Old Dope Peddler”, “Be Prepared”, and “It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be a Soldier”)

• Chuck Mangione, 84, American flugelhornist, composer ("Feels So Good") and actor (King of the Hill), Grammy winner (1977, 1979)

Best Lines/Funniest Lines:

Verbal: After that, my guess is that you'll never hear from him again. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that... he's gone.

Verbal: Keaton always said, "I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him." Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze.

Verbal: How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?

Verbal: A man can convince anyone he's somebody else, but never himself.

Kobayashi: One cannot be betrayed if one has no people.

Interrogation Cop: I can put you in Queens on the night of the hijacking.

Hockney: Really? I live in Queens. Did you put that together yourself, Einstein? What, do you got a team of monkeys working around the clock on this?

Fenster: Man, I had a finger up my asshole tonight.

Hockney: Is it Friday already?

Verbal: To a cop the explanation is never that complicated. It's always simple. There's no mystery to the street, no arch criminal behind it all. If you got a dead body and you think his brother did it, you're gonna find out you're right.

The Stanley Rubric:

Legacy: 5.75

Impact/Significance: 7.5

Novelty: 8

Classic-ness: 3

Rewatchability: 4

Audience Score: 9.2 (88% Google, 96% RT)

Total: 37.45

Remaining Questions:

• Was every part of Verbal Kint's story made up?

• Now that there are several people who can identify him as Keyser Soze, isn't the point of killing the one guy who could ID him kinda undermined?

• Why would Kint put himself out there like this?