A great movie that requires intense concentration, attentiveness, and open-mindedness.

Rating: 10/10 (20 November 2001)

WARNING - POSSIBLE SPOILER! Please read no further if you are still in the mystery.
The solution to The Usual Suspects is up to the audience as far as determination of who is what and who.
Key questions and statements: "Who is Keyser Soze?" "You never knew, that was his power." "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." "One cannot be betrayed if one has no people." "There was a group of Hungarians that wanted their own mob. They realized that to be in power you didn't need guns, or money, or even numbers, you just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn't." "Soze looks over the faces of his family then he shows those men a will, what WILL really was." "He tells them he would rather see his family dead than live another day after this." "No one ever really believes." "Keaton always said, "I don't believe in God but I'm afraid of him". "I believe in God and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Soze."
Roger "Verbal" Kint was Keyser Soze a/k/a The Devil. Evidence: conversation between the cop and the special agent regarding Verbal's immunity, "This whole thing has turned political. This guy is protected from up on high by the Prince of Darkness, take my word for it"; picture faxed to NYPD given as part of the testimony of the burn victim; the burn victim's testimony that he thinks they were buying people, not dope (souls being called in by the one to whom they owed and/or had allegiance), that he saw the Devil, looked him in the eye. "Who's the Devil?" he was asked and he responded, "Keyser Soze, he was in the harbor killing many men" and stated that he saw his face. Verbal's statement regarding the line-up, "Besides it was fun, I got to make like I was notorious"; Verbal's shape-shifting at the end of the movie (limp removed and hand straightened out).
Verbal ad-libbed much of his testimony to the special agent based on data he read off of the office wall bulletin board and from the bottom of a coffee cup, i.e., alias Redfoot, Kobayashi (there was a real being but his real name probably wasn't Kobayashi), Guatamala, Quartet - Skokie, Illinois, 'orca-fat guy', etc. What really happened during those six weeks is anybody's guess but the fact remains that they did show up at the boat and attempt to destroy non-existent cocaine, kill and be killed 27 people, and attempt to collect 91 million dollars. Verbal killed all three of his accomplices, note the statement by McManus, "Strangest thing".
The special agent lacked imagination and operated like any other cop, i.e., "To a cop, the explanation is never that complicated, it's always simple. There no mystery to the street, no archcriminal behind it all. If you've got a dead body and you think his brother did it, you're going to find out you're right."
A brilliant script. "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."