The Devil Tricked Us Again!

Rating: 10/10 (6 December 2012)

"The Greatest Trick the Devil ever Pulled was Convincing the World He didn't Exist". This line will always be ingrained in my memory when it comes to my favorite movies of all time "The Usual Suspects" is definitely in my top 5 and if you were playing a trivia game and someone asked you to name the movie for which this quote was made I'm almost certain if you've seen this movie you would answer the question correctly. The film begins at night after an apparent bloodbath battle aboard a burning ship in the San Pedro harbor in California. You see a man who appears to be injured and disoriented sitting on the ground having a cigarette, their is fire and explosive liquids everywhere, and of course dead men all over the place, next you see a shadowy figure make his way from the top of the ship down to face are stranger on the ground, the mystery man calls are man on the ground "Keaton"(Gabriel Byrne), to which he replies I can't feel my legs Keyser, the man called Keyser ask Keaton, Are you ready? Next we assume Keaton is murdered by Keyser with a pistol before the cut away from this scene. The Theme of Usual Suspects appear to revolve around honor, pride, arrogance, fear and betrayal as methods to manipulate the human mind. The use of flashbacks are apparent as the next scene has low level crook Verbal Kint(Kevin Spacey), one of only two survivors being interrogated by US Customs Agent Dave Kujan(Chazz Parminteri). Verbal tells the agent how it all started: six weeks earlier, someone hijacked a truck full of guns, and five "usual suspects" were lined up and arrested. These suspects included Verbal and Keaton, plus the arrogant Todd Hockney(Kevin Pollak), the goof ball McManus(Stephen Baldwin) and the verbally challenged Fenster(Benicio Del Toro). They were put in the now famous line-up at police headquarters and told to repeat the line "Hand me the Keys you Fu_king Cock Sucker". Out of this was borne a ruthless gang who decided they would do a "Job" in other words a robbery together. Keaton wanted no part of it, however, when they are contacted by a strange attorney named Kobayashi(Pete Postlethwaithe)and informed they must carry out an assignment given to them by ruthless and mythical crime figure Keyser Soze, or else they will be murdered. This film reminds me of another classic film in relation to theme and that would be "Casablanca" because each time you see this movie it opens a new layer to the plot or a new angle that was missed the first time we saw it. If you haven't seen this movie yet, I'd suggest that you do, it's a modern day 90's classic.