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THE USUAL SUSPECTS – John Ottman
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.
This famous quote from the writings of 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire is at the heart of the story of The Usual Suspects, the film which marked the mainstream debuts of director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. It is a neo-noir crime thriller that unfolds as a story within a story, as told to federal agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) by Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey), a small-time con artist with cerebral palsy; Kint is one of two survivors of an explosion on a ship docked in San Pedro harbor in Los Angeles. Kint recounts the events leading up to the explosion, telling Kujan that five criminals – himself, plus Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fred Fenster (Benicio del Toro), Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), and Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak) – met during a police lineup in New York, and began committing heists together. Eventually, they are drawn into the orbit of the mysterious, almost mythical crime lord Keyser Söze, a figure so feared that most refuse to speak his name. Söze coerces the group into attacking the ship in San Pedro in order to eliminate witnesses who can identify him, and eventually Kujan comes to believe that Keaton – a former corrupt cop apparently trying to go straight – must have been Söze. Read more…
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