A Solid but Typical Mystery/Thriller

Rating: 8/10 (6 December 1999)

The Usual Suspects is a good mystery/thriller. There is fine acting, the script is clever and the film is well made. While there were not that many surprises for me because the movie was fairly mainstream, I had a good time watching it.
The Usual Suspects works because of a great performance by Kevin Spacey and a script that has some good plot twists and hops around enough to different places and times which keeps the viewer off balance. Gabriel Byrne and Chazz Palminteri are also good in supporting roles.
I said before that that there were not many surprises for me with this film. This is because The Usual Suspects follows some typical plot formulas for these types of movies done in the last few years. You know that the brightest person in the movie will be a criminal, the cops are corrupt and some crook will get away with the big crime. Since 1970 this has been repeated over and over. The flashbacks didn't confuse me much because of all the practice I've had watching Goodfellas, Pulp fiction and Out of Sight.

For me, I prefer the approach of The Godfather and Goodfellas with this type of film. This is mainly due to these Mafia movies being pretty well grounded in reality. While watching Usual Suspects I thought if these people were so clever, they would not be petty criminals.
Overall The Usual Suspects is well worth watching. It is not great but it is certainly entertaining.