Great Film that could have been Greater. **** out of ****

Rating: 10/10 (15 June 1999)

"The Usual Suspects" is like a giant across movie landscape. Throughout film history no other thriller has so thoroughly captured an audience's attention and then massacres their predictions of something they never knew to begin with, then placing them into a state of wondering just what has happened here. I'll tell you what, I see over one hundred movies a year and this is one of the best, most imaginative and involving I have seen in my life.
The movie begins on a gloomy night in the past, featuring a boat heist gone wrong as an injured man named Keaton lies on the cold hard cement. Then, slowly and quietly, a misty image appears. He walks up to Keaton and shots him twice with a gun in his hand. Now, the story beings, so read carefully.
Six weeks ago: five men are arrested, they include Verbal, Hockney, Fenster, McManus, and Keaton. They meet in a hilarious police-lineup, and decide to plan emerald robbery. Keaton, at first unsure of himself turning back to the face of crime, but then later on chooses to be included after all. The heist is pulled of perfectly and leads to another where a drug dealer named Saul is killed, but the robber is successful.
However, after the five men's success is at its top, a mysterious, tall man appears calling himself Kobayashi and explain to them that the notorious Keyser Sose demands that they do a boat heist docked in San Pedro Harbor, which turns out to be an extremely dangerous mission in which no one believes that all five will live, but those who do will inherit immense rewards. Fenster is resistant and is then found brutally killed on a beach. The rest then plan to kill Kobayashi and his men, but he again gives the upper hand on the four men and blackmails them into doing the robbery against their will. One survives.
That man is Verbal, a cripple, who tells though a police questioning and flashbacks the story above, to a cop named Kujan. He explains who Keyser Sose is: At first we meet him as just a clam shadow smoking a cigarette as he kills a man helpless and confused. We then here about him in a legend, a man who would rather murder his own family than has them live another day in sorrow. Later we see his towering power and reputation, a murdered man on a beach, an accused killer freed by high stakes agents, a boat filled with professional mercenaries found burned with nearly everyone killed. Then, alas, we see him for a last time, as a man who has been in front of our faces the whole time, and in the end, slips right though our fingers, never to be seen again.
Keyser Sose is a brilliantly achieved villain, perhaps one of the most inspiring ever developed, but we never actual see his face, only in the end? So how can we care about someone whom we never see. No body has ever seen God, but everyone fears him.
The dialogue is explicit, detailed and profane, wonderfully written and order. The characters are not your typical movie people, but realistic low lives, who break many rules of act breaks, antagonists protagonists and present day formula. This is a near flawless film.
Near Flawless? Yes, there are a few unanswered questioned aboard "The Usual Suspects." For instance, Why don't we see Fenster being killed? Or why does Kujan let Verbal go after admitting to killing Saul? Or why don't we see Keaton's girlfriend being killed? So many important events are only talked about, never seen.
Kevin Spacy needs to be nominated for best actor of the century and most certainly is on my list for the greatest performer in a leading role of all time.
"The Usual Suspects" is a movie that I believe everyone, age appropriate, should experience. While sitting in my lazy boy screening this movie I felt something. Something that only people who are emotionally touched by movies feel. It is a feeling in which for two hours your life stops, and the experiencing of another begins. The chemistry between the viewer and the film itself here is indescribable. This movie will continue to haunt us forever, not just because of the great script it had but also for the better script it could have been.