Perfection On Screen

Rating: Null/10 (5 December 1998)

Why do these things happen? Why is the Academy so scared when it comes to giving crime thrillers the awards they so obviously deserve? Pulp Fiction, Se7en and Suspects. All these films shpuld have won best picture or director Oscars but got palmed off with screenplay and supporting awards. Se7en didn't even get a nomination for anything but editing. There isn't enough justice. But I'm not making my point, which is simply that Suspects is one of the best films ever made throughout the history of cinema. Full stop.
It is one of the ultimate (notice I'm not saying 'the ultimate') combinations of style, acting, directing, script, editing, music, and plot. from the very moment it starts with the flash of a match to its final heart stopping, jaw dropping, spine tingling finish, it hits you from all sides with magnificence. The characters are so brilliantly acted, the scenes so stunningly played and the story so cunningly told that you hardly have time to catch your breath before given some more cinematic excellence to digest.
Chris McQuarrie desrves much kudos for his creation. The story is so excellent and the script so wonderfully spot on that it's hard to imagine anybody making a bad film from it. But it is Bryan Singer's magnificent control over every aspect of the film that truly delivers the goods. He trusts his actors (all of which give stunningly sharp performances) to tell the audience something with a glance that others would need 15 minutes of dialogue to say. The clues and tips he throws in throughout the movie are so glaringly obvious the second time round that you wonder how you could have missed them. And all the time he never loses the focus of the story. As Spacey said accepting his Oscar, if Soze does exist then it has to be Singer as he's the one that pulls the strings.
And then there is 'that' ending. The ending which will have newcomers gasping out loud and veterans smirking at the cleverness of it all. The ending that 100 years of predictable cinema has taught you never to expect has finally arrived and it was worth waiting every second for. The final line simply chills you to the bone.
The bottom line is that it was Suspects that deserved the awards that Braveheart got. The Academy will smugly sit back and tell us that the better film won. Those that have seen know differently.