A Masterpiece of Manipulation ...

Rating: 10/10 (24 August 2011)

Approaching "The Usual Suspects" as a mystery thriller with an iconic ending disregards the real matter that cemented its greatness: the script. "The Usual Suspects", more than any film, is a masterpiece of effective manipulation on which the final twist is only the icing on a rather delicious cake.
I'm inclined to believe that most of the fans realized the magnitude of "The Usual Suspects" on TV, VHS or DVD rather than in a movie theater. The movie has a fair share of thrills and action but is richer in terms of plot, subplots, and sub-subplots and demands more than one viewing. Although I catch one or two subtleties every once in a while, I think I got now 99% enough to consider myself a true fan of the film, and again, this is not just because of the finale.
"The Usual Suspects" is like a modern "Rashomon" in the way it plays back and forth with flashbacks through an interrogation between a police officer, David Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) and Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey), a dim-witted cripple and the only survival of a harbor massacre. This is the mystery the movie opens with, as the game consists on finding out the 'why' and the 'how' lying beneath a bloody killing that killed everyone for 91 million dollars worth of an inexistent dope. And progressively, the mystery deviates to a more harrowing 'who' question, incarnated by the haunting presence of a criminal mastermind, named Keyser Soze, a human devil whose identity remains secret. The film puts us in Kujan's shoes, he who pretends to be the smarter, still, both Kujan and us, take Kint's words for granted until we're fooled by the shocking finale, but again, everything is in the build-up.
The build up is why the comparison with "Rashomon" takes its full significance. Kurosawa's masterpiece didn't just pave the way for non-linear narrative films, it was also revolutionary through the introduction of subjective narration, inviting us not to believe in everything we see from a character's point of view. Not that most of what Kint reveals is a lie, but what Kujan will believe won't be necessarily the truth. This is manipulation at its best, to make you believe something from your own thinking, by still respecting your intelligence. And this is the irony of the film, while we expect a twist, we're never discussing the veracity of what is said, it's like approaching the virtual core of the truth without never touching the inner verity. This is why the ending is literally spectacular; we're literally blinded by the unbearable truth's light. But this effect wouldn't have been the same if it wasn't for what preceded.
As a reference to the iconic line from "Casablanca", the usual suspects are five criminals joined in the famous line-up for a mysterious truck robbery. What strikes the most is that they are criminals of higher caliber, when in general; you've got one tough guy and just some bums put there as fillers. There were obviously lined up for another reason, a mission for Keyser Soze, the criminal whose reputation exceeds the limit of believability, a myth, a spook story? His absence is as chilling as his presence anyway. And there was absolutely no way for them to refuse, the tightly written script leaves no plot holes, only stuff left to interpretation, but for the rest, and every single detail, every line or look on a face, makes perfect sense. It's an elaborate puzzle where you can get the final image until the last piece and nothing can match the first time you experience the film, and not just the ending.
And the greatness is that the build-up of Keyser Soze's character contributes to show him as man so evil, and so present, that his non-existence would be unacceptable if not implausible. He's here, and he's surely one of the usual suspects, and since we feel we're being tricked, we ought to think, maybe Keyser is Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) or this Kobayashi lawyer (Pete Postelwhaite) or who the hell knows, maybe Kujan. It's not thrown in our face, we really try to believe this and when Kujan releases Kint, whatever the truth is, we feel like any coming twist must be both convincing and spectacular. Well, the wall board was probably one of the greatest cinematic revelations ever, getting us the final piece of the puzzle as we understand how Kint used the wall to insert some realistic details in his story. We got the final move of a psychological chess game, an extraordinary manipulation highlighted by the succession of quotes in voice-over in a masterstroke of sound editing sublimated by a perfect music and a revelation reaching its pinnacle on the sidewalk. Check-mate. When the movie ends, we realize what came before really needs a second viewing.
And besides the writing and the editing, there are the little details you re-discover. When Kint is looking earlier at the wall, he looks dumbly detached but the second time you realize that he's building his story. When Kujan drinks coffee, you can see Kint glancing at the bottom of the mug, and you know how he got the Kobayahshi's name from. The details are also in these little something that made the movie so human, the hilarious line up is genuinely authentic, , it's not a movie with big-stars names, but the casting convey the feeling of underdog criminals with no small roles, hell, even Benicio Del Toro, who plays a minor character found the perfect note to make him memorable.
Still, Kevin Spacey outperforms everyone as the character you stop looking at him the same way after each viewing. If not the greatest, he's certainly one of the most fascinating villains of cinema's history, whose shining moment is the last minute where in one look, he metamorphoses.
Well, I guess the ending of the film is a big part of its greatness after all