"The Usual Suspects" is not the *Usual* mid-1990s crime-thriller...

Rating: 10/10 (18 July 2015)

I have a strange history with the 1995 neo-noir crime-thriller "The Usual Suspects."
I saw the film for the first time when I was in middle school; I remember being thoroughly impressed with the picture and I may (or may not) have rented it a few times from Blockbuster Video (I entered middle school in the late 1990s). And then I never really saw it again, but I do remember that "The Usual Suspects" always stuck with me, even if 15 years has passed since I last saw it. And then on a whim, I watched the movie again today. My opinion has not changed on this movie at all, but today's viewing has only reaffirmed my glowing praise for this picture.
The other reason that this movie stuck with me for so long was because this film made the reputation of its director, a then-29-year-old Bryan Singer. I came to know Bryan Singer through his work on the "X-Men" movies - "X-Men" (2000) and its superior sequel, "X2" (2003). Although I won't go into the details why, I've long been a fan of the X-Men superhero team and I've long believed that Singer - through certain aspects of his personal background - was the perfect director for the first two films in that series and he brought those particular aspects of his personal background to make those films his own. That is something I'll always be thankful to him for, and "X2" is my personal favorite film that he's ever done (if not necessarily his best).
But still, let's go back to the film that started it all for Bryan Singer...
Let me just say that I consider "The Usual Suspects" to be the best crime-thriller of the '90s. Yes, I said it, "The Usual Suspects" is even better than "Pulp Fiction" (1994); while I like Quentin Tarantino, I've never truly liked "Pulp Fiction" and have considered that to be Tarantino's weakest effort - yet Tarantino won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, so he obviously did something right. I don't think that it's any coincidence that a year after Tarantino won his first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for his script for "The Usual Suspects," which I obviously feel is the better of the two. I've just found "The Usual Suspects" to be far more inventive - and watchable - in its story and characters, and complex and involving story-line.
"The Usual Suspects" is one of the most compelling, original, frightening, and (occasionally) blackly humorous thrillers ever made, with one of the greatest, and shocking, plot twists in cinematic history. The film begins in the aftermath of a mysterious ship explosion and firefight in San Pedro Bay in Los Angeles, California. The police arrest cripple and con man Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey, who won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his performance here), who was only one of two survivors. While being interrogated by U.S. Customs agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), Kint reveals that six weeks earlier in New York City, he and four other small-time criminals - Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a corrupt ex-cop who's since been trying to go straight; professional thief Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin); McManus's partner Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro); and Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), a hijacker and explosives expert - were arrested and interrogated by the New York City Police Department on trumped-up charges in connection to a gun shipment robbery.
Kint goes on to further explain a rich and complicated back-story, in which the five of them enter into a series of complex criminal schemes that eventually brings the attention of a mysterious crime figure named "Keyser Soze," whose criminal exploits and ruthless reputation are so feared that he has earned a near-mythical status in the criminal underworld. It all leads to a shocking revelation of just who it is that's been pulling the five men's strings the whole time - Keyser Soze, or someone else?
I have to admit that I loved every moment of "The Usual Suspects." This movie definitely earned every bit of praise heaped upon it by the mainstream and independent movie press upon its release in 1995; just as an aside, this film was released into theaters three days after my tenth birthday in 1995. Kevin Spacey earned his Oscar for Best Supporting Actor here in one of the great performances of the '90s. Though the work of the four principal actors cannot be discounted - Gabriel Byrne is by far the most sympathetic of the quintet as their de-facto, albeit highly reluctant, leader, Dean Keaton; Stephen Baldwin (whom I personally took the greatest liking to) as Michael McManus and this is probably his best-known film role before his career took a hit in the late '90s and early 2000s; Benicio Del Toro as the mangled-English-speaking Fred Fenster, who would go on to become an Oscar-winner himself in just a few short years (for "Traffic" in 2000); and Kevin Pollak as the one true common-man of the group, Todd Hockney.
Neo-noir crime-thrillers were big in the 1990s after "Pulp Fiction" almost single-handedly reinvented the cinematic medium; "The Usual Suspects," with its gripping story and characters, and snappy dialogue, was the next (and arguably) greatest thing to come from that era. It's a brilliant, mesmerizing viewing experience from a film-making team that struck cinematic gold. And how can anyone not mention John Ottman's touching, occasionally brooding and mysterious film score? I just had to mention that also before I finally close this out.
"The Usual Suspects" is certainly not your "Usual" mid-1990s thriller...
10/10