People don't get it

Rating: 10/10 (15 October 2009)

Every bad review of this film can be summed in one question: "what's the point of watching the entire movie if it's all just made up?!"
The problem with this view is, of course, that it fails to appreciate that The Usual Suspects is a MOVIE. Every movie has a narrator. Some narrators tell part of the story by talking (e.g. The Shawshank Redemption). Some tell part of the story by writing (e.g. Star Wars). The vast majority of narrators don't talk or write, they just show--no voice over, no text at the bottom of the screen saying "Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean." A few movies have a narrator within the narration. The Princess Bride, for example, tells the story of a grandfather telling a story. We appreciate the story-within-a-story plot of that film because it draws us in from the beginning.
But one thing that all these movies have in common is that they're movies. They are fictional stories told through a visual/auditory medium. The fact that none of it is true doesn't make a movie any less spectacular. Take Saving Private Ryan for example--does it take away from the movie knowing that the story behind it is completely fabricated?
This is what the naysayers tend to miss about The Usual Suspects--like any movie, it tells a fiction...but UNLIKE most other movies, this one goes a step further and ADMITS that the whole story was made up. That is, the "outer" narrator (the all-seeing, all-knowing camera), shows you that the "inner" narrator (Verbal) was lying through his nose.
This doesn't make the film worse...it makes it better. It reminds the viewer how gullible people are. The living proof is the people who criticize the movie for not being clear about what really happened. As if "what really happened" really happened. Newsflash: it didn't...this is fiction.
Of the many reasons why The Usual Suspects is a great movie, here's the one that I'm trying to point out with this post: The film makes you believe that it is a story about a master criminal. Then you find out that it's a story about a master storyteller (who just happens to be a master criminal).