One of the best thrillers I've ever seen, including a story which consists of twists that will amaze you

Rating: 9/10 (8 May 2007)

"The Usual Suspects" is by far one of the best thrillers I've ever seen. The movie tells about 5 crooks, who are brought together for questioning because of a truck hijack in New York. This is followed by a period of events and eventually they all are left with a mission, which a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze has arranged for them because they all have wronged Soze in certain points of their criminal careers. They have no other choice than do the mission, because they're obviously being blackmailed and also because they just simply have to pay back what they've done in the past. It doesn't go as planned and the whole story is told by one of the crooks, Roger 'Verbal' Kint. What really happened on the job and is there even a man named Keyser Soze?
The screenplay's just amazing, the whole plot consists of twists that are just so surprising that it makes you stare at the emptiness leaving you dribbling all over the place like you were being in a some kind of a mental institution. It progresses in a definite flow, leaving you concentrating so much that you don't want to miss one second of the movie itself. It's interesting, it's exciting, it's thrilling and it's just brilliant. The directing compliments the whole screenplay, by being so witty that it feels like you were watching a real live action crime happening, having a very nice cinematography as a backup. Some of the angles and the ways how some things are shot is just so significant for the movie that it's just, like mentioned above, so brilliant.
The music isn't beautiful and phenomenal in purpose to make you cry, it's in purpose of giving you a guaranteed entertainment and a thrilling motion picture experience, composed by John Ottman. I mean, the music's just so fitting that it gives you this specific familiar smile on your face which says "Yeah, awesome, that's how you do it." Well, you get the point, it's the kind of music you want for a thriller, giving the movie that required thriller edge to it.
Despite the amazing screenplay, the things that make this movie so fantastic are the characters and the role performances done by the actors. Taking for example the five crooks, there's the bad ass Michael McManus, played by Stephen Baldwin, who I haven't actually seen doing a better role performance than as McManus. Then there's the cold and intelligent Dean Keaton, played by Gabriel Byrne, who really fits for the role like a strawberry for a pancake. Then there's Fred Fenster, the associate of McManus and the one "with the looks", played by Benicio Del Toro, who's always enjoyable, yet usually in a weird role. Then there's Todd Hockney, the explosions expert and the one who just doesn't give a damn about anyone, played by Kevin Pollack, doing one of his best role performances yet to date. And finally, there is Roger 'Verbal' Kint, a cripple man who is in no use for anyone, being irrelevant, wanting to be a better crook, played by Kevin Spacey, who also does one of his best (if not The Best) role performances yet to date. Spacey's just so good that he's the movie's essence. Those are a few characters to name, but there are a whole bunch of others, played by actors who are at their best, making the movie so fantastic in every aspect.
All in all "The Usual Suspects" is a fantastic film everyone should see. It has some of the best story twists ever written to a motion picture, making you that mental institution patient right till the end titles, where you keep on being that patient until you wake up in the real world realising that the movie's a celebration of fantastic characters and actors, an amazing screenplay and superb directing. Great.