Gold-plated classic

Rating: 10/10 (12 February 1999)

Be warned - this is the ultimate thinking man's movie. It will leave the Roger Eberts of this world dumbfounded, confused and ultimately uncomprehending of its greatness.
Bold and showily complex, it is a no-kidding-around gold-plated classic - along the lines of "The Big Sleep" or "The Maltese Falcon." The movie involves a cop named Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) questioning a single witness, a shifty-eyed, club-footed criminal named Verbal, played by Kevin Spacey with the wounded innocence of a kid who ate all the cookies. Verbal tells a story so complicated that most people will fail to track of it; yet, it is a wonderful story, an elaborate tale of a heist involving a mythical, larger-than-life baddy named Keyser Soze and his manipulation of five hoods who get way in over their heads.
As Verbal talks, we see what he describes, and his story takes on an objective quality in our minds - we forget we're only getting his version.
The story is told in a series of flashbacks - director Bryan Singer and writer Chris McQuarrie show off their complex structural narrative with terrific performances from Benicio Del Tor, Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak and Kevin Spacey. The story builds up to a blinding revelation, which shifts the nature of all that has gone before.