Making a simple plan complicated doesn't make one brilliant

Rating: 7/10 (7 April 2004)

******SPOILERS****** Highly overdone movie about a mass killing in a shoot-out and explosion of a ship docked at San Pedro Harbor with connections to a notorious Hungarian drug gang. As well as a crew of hoods recruited out of NYC who tried to rip the gang off of the 91 million dollars of coke on the ship. Added to that a mysterious mob kingpin who set up the whole operation, for very personal reasons, to use as cover for him to knock off a witness on the ship that was to be turned over by the gang to the FBI as a witness against him that could land the mob kingpin behind bars for life.
All this is seen in flashback, at the San Pedro Police Station, with Special US Customs Agent Dave Kujan, Chazz Palmintri, interviewing Roger Verbal (Kevin Spacey),the only survivor of this holocaust, for what seems like the time you would have sat through an old movie triple-feature with cartoons newsreels and coming attractions added on. We're bombarded by Verbal's story that goes on endlessly about how he and his fellow hoods were recruited by Mr. Kobayashi, Pete Postiethwaite, back in New York City some six weeks earlier to do a job for the mysterious Kayser Soze (?) ,whom they are told by Kobayashi that they are in debt to. Verbal goes on endlessly talking about this very strange and confusing plan that the Kayser concocted which in the end turns out to be an elaborate hit, by himself, of a protected government witness.
You would think if this Kayser Soze was as smart as the movie makes him out to be why didn't he or his mouthpiece, Kabayashi, tell these hoods just to knock off the witness instead of having all this killing going on at the San Pedro Harbor as well as all over the country with all of them ending up dead except Verbal? And even more important why did he, The Kayser, have to kill the witness himself leaving himself open to being killed or captured by the Hungarian drug gang as well as the recruited hoods themselves if they ever found out who he was, and what he was planing for them, or the police?
Another thing that doesn't make sense about the movie "The Usual Suspects" is that this Kayser Soze who is so unknown and secretive even to his fellow mobsters, it seemed that only Mr. Kobayashi knew just who he was, would be that well known by the FBI or local police to be identified and arrested? And who would their protected witness know who to finger if this Kayser Soze was so unidentifiable? What was so important about this person that the Kayser was dealing with, and wanted to knock off, that he would reveal his real identity and place of residents to him where he would blow the cover that he so painstakingly built up over the years? Was this individual involved in preparing the Kysers Federal and State Income Tax returns?
Even at the end of the film when it was finally revealed just who the Kyser was you still didn't really know who he was since he was using an allies just like the name Kayser Soze itself obviously was. And even if the FBI and local police really knew who he was and where he was and went to arrest him would the murderous and cunning Kayser Soze just stay there and let himself be taken into custody? With all the avenues of escape and control with his mob's vast resources available to him?
The ending of the movie shocked you only because it seemed to make sense at the time that you were exposed to it but after getting over the shock and realizing just how irrational it was, as well as the whole film, you began to see that's all it really was: An end to the movie.