Genres: Crime | Mystery | Thriller Countries: Germany | USA Actors: 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 Dan Hedaya Sgt. Geoffrey 'Jeff' Rabin Suzy Amis Edie Finneran Paul Bartel Smuggler Carl Bressler Saul Berg Phillip Simon Fortier Jack Shearer Renault Christine Estabrook Dr. Plummer Directors: Bryan Singer Certification: Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Brazil:16 | Canada:14A | Chile:18 | Denmark:16 | Finland:K-16 | France:U ...  show all  Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Brazil:16 | Canada:14A | Chile:18 | Denmark:16 | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Hungary:16 | Ireland:18 | Italy:T | Japan:PG-12 | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:M18 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R  hide  IMDB Rating: 8.7 out of 10 (197221 votes)

Storyline

Taglines: 

Plot Summary: 

Near the end of The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, in his Oscar-winning performance as crippled con man Roger “Verbal” Kint, says, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” This may be the key line in this story; the farther along the movie goes, the more one realizes that not everything is quite what it seems, and what began as a conventional whodunit turns into something quite different. A massive explosion rips through a ship in a San Pedro, CA, harbor, leaving 27 men dead, the lone survivor horribly burned, and 91 million dollars’ worth of cocaine, believed to be on board, mysteriously missing. Police detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) soon brings in the only witness and key suspect, “Verbal” Kint. Kint’s nickname stems from his inability to keep his mouth shut, and he recounts the events that led to the disaster. Five days earlier, a truckload of gun parts was hijacked in Queens, NY, and five men were brought in as suspects: Kint, hot-headed hipster thief McManus (Stephen Baldwin), ill-tempered thug Hockney (Kevin Pollak), flashy wise guy Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a cop gone bad now trying to go straight in the restaurant business. While in stir, someone suggests that they should pull a job together, and Kint hatches a plan for a simple and lucrative jewel heist. Despite Keaton’s misgivings, the five men pull off the robbery without a hitch and fly to Los Angeles to fence the loot. Their customer asks if they’d be interested in pulling a quick job while out West; the men agree, but the robbery goes horribly wrong and they soon find themselves visited by Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), who represents a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze. Soze’s violent reputation is so infamous that he’s said to have responded to a threat to murder his family by killing them himself, just to prove that he feared no one. When Kobayashi passes along a heist proposed by Soze that sounds like suicide, the men feel that they have little choice but to agree.

A slick triumph of casting and wordplay, The Usual Suspects was one of the most fiendishly intricate American films of the 1990s. Relentlessly stylish and growing more convoluted by the frame, the film invited its audience to take part in the confusion, to attempt to discern illusion from reality as if watching a magician’s act. What makes The Usual Suspects remarkable is that fact and fiction never evolve into distinct entities, entwining in an almost indiscernible jumble to baffle the viewer. Like the all-important but (largely) unseen Keyser Soze, Suspects’ genius rested in holding its audience hostage to the intangible, making it equally impossible to believe what you’ve seen or dismiss what you haven’t. In turn, the film is shamelessly manipulative, demanding the audience’s complete involvement and undivided attention; a bathroom break carries the risk of losing the plot entirely. As the men caught up in the film’s labyrinthine intrigue, Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, and Stephen Baldwin fit their roles perfectly, demonstrating an ensemble casting coup. Spacey, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Verbal Kint, is particularly impressive, managing to be pathetic, off-handedly irreverent, and cunning all at once. The qualities on display in his performance make him the poster child for the film’s overall tone: shifty, garrulous, and altogether not to be trusted, Spacey’s Kint embodies the film’s compulsive, charming will to deception. Director Bryan Singer handles his characters and the film’s many twists with the ease of a devious master puppeteer, mixing liberal doses of film noir, humor, and intrigue with refreshing audacity. The result was one of the most accomplished thrillers of the decade, a mystery whose wild manipulations came courtesy of a director whose hands were very tightly gripped around the controls.

Plot Keywords: 

Downloads

See also

The Godfather (1972) Summary: Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather is a touchstone of cinema: one of the most widely imitated, quoted, and lampooned movies of all time. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino star as... IMDB Rating: 9.2 (285295 votes) Download: DVD DivX PDA

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Summary: In 1946, a banker named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of a double murder, even though he stubbornly proclaims his innocence. He's sentenced to a life term at the Shawshank State Prison in Maine, where another lifer, Ellis "Red" Redding ... IMDB Rating: 9.2 (336524 votes) Download: DVD DivX PDA

The Godfather: Part II (1974) Summary: Francis Ford Coppola's legendary continuation and sequel to his landmark 1972 film, The Godfather, parallels the young Vito Corleone's rise with his son Michael's spiritual fall, deepening The Godfather's depiction of the dark side of the American... IMDB Rating: 9 (163530 votes) Download: DivX iPod

Pulp Fiction (1994) Summary: Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s. Director and co-screenwriter Quentin Tarantino synthesized such seemingly disparate traditions as ... IMDB Rating: 8.9 (288977 votes) Download: DVD DivX PDA

Once Upon A Time In The West (1969) Summary: In Sergio Leone's epic Western, shot partly in Monument Valley, a revenge story becomes an epic contemplation of the Western past. To get his hands on prime railroad land in Sweetwater, crippled railroad baron Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) hires kill... IMDB Rating: 8.8 (47767 votes) Download: DVD DivX PDA