The Usual Suspects (1995)

Rated R for a lot of language.  Like, the amount of swearing feels like a 20-something wrote this to shock the system.  It just so happens that the movie is good, so we forgive the childish amount of swearing.  There's also a blurry shot of a rape and the amount of violence in the movie is pretty upsetting.  The Usual Suspects, from a parent perspective, is one of those movies that really tries to be shocking.  Depending on your level of densensitization, it's really not that shocking.  But if I listed the sheer amount of lightly R-rated things, you'd be impressed.  R.

DIRECTOR:  Bryan Singer

Kevin Spacey in a Bryan Singer film.  How different were both of their lives in 1995?  I always kind of treated The Usual Suspects as one of those bro-ey college movies that White men absolutely adore.  It kind of is that movie, by the way.  I never necessarily feel great watching this movie.  But it's also a really good movie at the same time.  My film class alumni came together and watched this one and it is one of those movies that really does need to be watched at one point or another.  Honestly, there was probably a time that lauded this movie as the best thing ever.  But this might be another one of those movies that is kind of ruined by the fanbase as opposed to the actual quality of the film itself.

I think I have to write a formal SPOILER warning in this one.  I am spoilery about everything I write, but The Usual Suspects really gets elevated by a twist ending.  I remember watching this back in the day and being blown away by the twist ending.  It's still a pretty good one.  But showing this to viewers today, I had two former students just shout out almost simultaneously, fifteen minutes before the reveal, that Verbal Kint was Keyser Soze.  It's a disappointing feeling, that oment.  One of the greatest moments in film is when the filmmakers catch us off-guard.  I don't know if viewers are becoming more savvy, or is it that so many people have taken the template of The Usual Suspects and made their own movies involving flavors of the same twist.  It may be a combination of both.  Maybe one of the great things about the '90s (which is making me sound incredibly Millennial right now) is that we kind of had a return to form to the Hitchcock style reveal.  There were some absolute bangers of films that nailed a big final act reveal.  The problem is that we kept trying to ride that train and now we've kind of formulized original concepts.

It's weird to talk about Kevin Spacey now.  I had to Google what the status on Kevin Spacey actually is right now.  Spacey was acquitted of charges of rape and I hear that he has a movie lined up right now.  Okay.  But there's a lot of people that say that he groped them and I don't love that.  Okay.  I have to look at this movie as a movie and Spacey as Verbal as a performance.  It's so integral to the film that it needs to be broken down.  I'm going to preface this by saying that Verbal isn't my favorite Spacey performance.  Before all of this stuff came out, I was a huge Spacey fan.  I almost watched The Big Kahuna, despite the fact that it looked terrible, because I knew that Spacey was going to be good in it.  I can't give you my two cents on The Big Kahuna because, thankfully, I got over Spacey by that point.  But Verbal is an incredible character and I think that Spacey nails what it is to be Verbal.

Now, it seems like it is low hanging fruit.  Walk with a disability.  Portray frailness.  I get it.  I could probably get that part.  But Spacey is working this character incredibly well.  I'm not talking about him hiding Keyser Soze.  There's a way to play Keyser Soze without implying that he's going to be this dark character.  After all, Verbal is the one who tells the audience and the police about who Keyser Soze is.  There's no actual characterization for Soze outside of archetypes that we associate with Hungarian warlord.  (Okay, I was actually weirded out by "Hungarian" as a choice of origin for a warlord.  But again, I am woefully ignorant of such things.)   I'm more talking about Verbal being incredibly playful the entire time.  Everything we know about Verbal is fake.  He's this guy who seems over-his-head.  Now, Verbal could be snivelling.  He's not.  His character is in over-his-head, yet he still plays for dominance in the interrogation. He's also a character who is apparently emotionally available.  These are all choices that Kevin Spacey as Keyser Soze is making.  I like the idea that Verbal's real tragedy is that Gabriel Byrne's Keaton is just using him.  Again, Soze doesn't care.  He's one of these next level villains who found Keaton because he's the closest stand-in for Soze.  It's pretty solid.

The best part is that Soze's smart move is just to wait out the two hours before he's out on bail.  Cool.  Instead, Soze's choice is to intentionally prod this officer who is so desperate to get Soze by giving him hints about his lies.  The barbershop quartet in Skokie, Illinois?  That has nothing to do with Verbal's testimony.  There's so many of these details that are just insulting his captor that make it fun.  But that's why it's such a lovely drop when we find out that Verbal is Soze.  It's the idea that Soze has a sense of humor and that none of this matters.  There's this desire to almost get caught.  After all, this is technically a catestrophic day for Keyser Soze.  Soze spends the movie killing anyone who is able to identify him and the movie ends with the NYPD having photos of Keyser Soze.  Mugshots!  Verbal Kint was photographed for processing. Yet, he's still playing with this police officer because he can.  It's fun.

But there are a handful of things that are actually not that amazing about the movie.  Kint is meant to be an unreliable narrator.  He's a little bit of Nick Carroway in this story.  Admittedly, he has more to do in this story than Nick does in The Great Gatsby, but he is still a little bit of an outsider in the story.  Part of that means that we can only see what Verbal does...until he doesn't.  Like, because he's Soze, we get these moments where Verbal shouldn't be able to tell us what is going on.  It just seems sloppy, but that could tie into the idea that Verbal doesn't mind playing with the officer. Still, we miss out on the death of Fenster.  Fenster's all of our favorite character, right?  Like, he's so good. (Side note: This is the first time I watched The Usual Suspects) with subtitles and now I know what Fenster was saying.  Sure, it took away a little bit of the magic, but that's the breaks.)   It's fine.  It just feels like Kint's narrative feels more episodic than it is a unified plot.  All these major moments fly by and I realize that the movie is stalling a bit.

The big thing is a bit of a cheat for the film.  The best part of the movie is the reveal with the objects around the room.  Knowing what I know about the film before this watch, I was looking for a way to solve all of the things that Kint is talking about.  Singer never really shows the room in detail.  We can only glean from Dan Hedaya's office that the character is a bit of a slob.  Even the couch has stacks of files piled up.  But we never get to see Kobiyashi.  We never get to see Quartet or Skokie, Illinois.  It's a really fun moment, but it's also a bit of a cheat to say "You didn't catch this?" because it was never shown to us.  If we're meant to solve the mystery of Keyser Soze, a lot of the clues are hidden from us until the reveal.

Still, the movie works.  I mean, it works pretty great.  Does it feel broey?  Totally.  I can't deny that.  But who cares sometimes?  This movie is an incredibly successful heist / whodunnit movie and it's pretty darned impressive.