Surprise. So what?

Rating: 4/10 (1 November 2006)

Though not new, the idea is fascinating. The idea of a less than average guy, that does not appear to have any particular quality but who instead is the mind behind the whole story. Story in which he seems to be just a walk on part.
This said, I find the plot (the story Verbal makes up) though not bad, to be pretty ordinary, and as a viewer I am barely entertained by it throughout 2 hours. And an ending, no matter how surprising, won't change that (leave alone that surprise might not be the sole quality one expect from a movie, except for those who consider the Twilight Zone episodes to be masterpieces). Characters don't have any depth, since everything is sacrificed on the attempt to conceal the ending (consider for instance the scene in which Kobayashy gives the 5 men their personal files: we are shown everyone's reaction, except Kint's).
Unlike many great thrillers, a second view of The Usual Suspects is pointless, unless you want to speculate endlessly on trifles, as if they really matter. Because there is no way a verbal (or Verbal) reconstruction of the events can contain as many details as we see on the movie, details which are told us by Bryan Singer, and not by 'Verbal' Kint. This discrepancy doesn't alter the experience of watching the movie, nor it turns it into a rip-off (if there's a place where I don't mind being "cheated" that's the cinema) but it makes any attempt to reorganize the facts in a coherent way to be a futile task.
The "old fascinating idea" I mentioned above is not exploited at all. In fact Verbal is not even a cripple. He has a Limo waiting for him around the corner. What a disappointment!