A cinematic trick pulled off in high style

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2004)

Yes, it's a trick, an elaborate set-up for an ending which is actually not quite an ending.
Yet, I find "The Usual Suspects" to be enormously entertaining, and I am a very discriminating moviegoer. I am picky to a fault, and have exasperated friends for over thirty years with my instant 2-star reviews of films they thought "brilliant" as we emerged from the theatre. But all of us have varied movie tastes, and simply because we have no emotional involvement or interest in a film doesn't make it a bad film or its fans stupid.
On my first viewing, I was hooked from the opening bars of the John Ottman score -- I find it impressive that he was also the film's cinematographer. "The Usual Suspects" is so well-lit and its look so uncluttered, with a color palette appropriately devoid of almost any primary colors.
I could listen to Pete Postlethwhaite read the phone book while watching that dome-like, idiosyncratic face; I find Chazz Palminteri to be perpetually underrated, and wonder what the hell has happened to Kevin Spacey's film career? Sometimes a movie is wildly overpraised on first release; an example that jumps immediately to mind is "The Russians are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" in 1966. Four Oscar nominations? Including Best Picture? I mean, come on.
And so it may have been for "The Usual Suspects." At least Christopher McQuarrie chose to create something a little outré, a script that stands apart from more conventional detective mysteries. The bones of the story may be a Hammett or Chandler retread, but it's the flesh on those bones that have gained "Suspects" a legion of fans.
For all those reasons and more, I'll continue to enjoy "The Usual Suspects," and revel in introducing the unsuspecting to its not inconsiderable pleasures.