The best thriller of the '90s

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2005)

The first and best reason to remember The Usual Suspects is one single line, spoken by low-level crook Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey): "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist". The cult phrase refers to Keyser Soze, a legendary criminal mastermind who, while unseen (or not, depending on the point of view), dominates the events of Bryan Singer's small yet massive masterpiece, the most accomplished entry in the thriller genre made during the '90s.
Christopher McQuarrie's complex, intelligent and Oscar-winning script (lots of flashbacks in this one) kicks off with the final stage of a massacre, culminating in the execution of a certain Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) and the explosion of the boat on which 27 people were brutally murdered. The sole survivor, the aforementioned Verbal, tells Detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) how it all started: six weeks earlier, someone stole a truck, and five "usual suspects" were lined up and arrested. These included Verbal and Keaton, plus the arrogant Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), the dim-witted McManus (Stephen Baldwin) and the latter's lover, the hard-to-understand Fenster (Benicio Del Toro, who apparently really had problems when it came to making his lines intelligible).
Now, as Keaton pointed out then and Verbal points out now, the usual strategy is putting one real criminal alongside four random buffoons who practically participate in line-ups for a living. Why were those five sharing a cell, then? The answer pops up after their release: the five suspects are contacted by a sinister attorney who goes by the name Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite) and told that they have to fulfil an assignment for Keyser Soze, otherwise they will all die. As the story proceeds, the incredulous police come to realize they're not dealing with the usual crime, or the usual perpetrators for that matter.
The film is clearly an independent production (all scenes were filmed in a limited number of locations, mostly indoors, and the director himself famously appeared in front of the camera in some of the close-ups), but it certainly thinks big, like most smaller films from the late '80s and early '90s. The title is of course an explicit homage to Casablanca, one of Singer's favorite movies, and the intricate plotting is blockbuster-worthy (if only most blockbusters were written this well). What it lacks in size it makes up for in mood and tension, both of which are provided largely through John Ottman's editing and music.
The other key attraction, sort of inevitably with such a cast, is the acting: Del Toro's performance promised a very bright future (and Traffic and 21 Grams have done nothing to prove him wrong), Byrne, Baldwin and Pollak delivered the last truly memorable silver-screen work of their careers (not that Baldwin had that much to speak of in the first place), and in the crippled, verbose Kint Spacey found the perfect role to impose himself as one of the fundamental screen presences of our time. And that's without mentioning the elusive figure of Keyser Soze: whether he's physically portrayed by someone or not, he is rightfully remembered as one of the most enduring cinema villains ever created. Not bad for a guy who hardly has any screen-time at all (or does he?).
Alongside The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, The Usual Suspects qualifies as the most intelligent and enjoyable thriller of the '90s. The extra points it scores are all due to the particular nature of its "central" villain: even more than Hannibal Lecter, Keyser Soze and his tricks won't leave your mind very easily.