Great film with a strong theme and clever use of camera angles

Rating: Null/10 (20 June 2011)

**May contain spoilers**
The film The Usual Suspects has a flashback driven plot that tells the story of why several criminals are killed and a freighter was destroyed. Throughout the film there is a running theme that people cannot escape the beliefs that others impose on them. As I provide a plot summary, I intend to show the connection between this theme and the plot points as well as how different film techniques such as angle and lightening contribute towards this theme.
The film opens with Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) seated on the deck of a freighter and lighting a cigarette. He tosses the still lit matches on a trail of gasoline but it is extinguished from by faceless figure in a suit and hat aboard an upper level of the freighter. The figure descends the stairs past some dead bodies to stand before Keaton, the camera pans away and two shots are heard. The camera returns to the faceless figure flicking his lit cigarette to the trail of gasoline creating a fireball that consumes the freighter.
It is the task of the rest of the film to explain this key event and it does so with Roger 'Verbal' Kint a crippled conman as the narrator explaining to a US Customs officer, Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) the sequence of events that led to this event. He recounts that six weeks ago Keaton, Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak) and himself were all called into a lineup for a truck hijacking. As a result of this meeting in a lineup they decide to do a job together. Keaton is reluctant because he'd gone straight, but is coerced by Kint to do it. Another factor for why Keaton agrees is that he doesn't believe he can go straight with Kujan always breathing down his neck. This relentless refusal to allow Keaton to try and better himself is further evidence of the theme.
However one job becomes two and before they know it, they are in front of Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), a lawyer for the infamous Keyser Soze. He is there on Soze's behalf to request they stop the drug deal of one of Soze's competitors. Soze is a kingpin in the world of crime and Kobayashi provides evidence that each of them has stolen from Soze and they must perform this job for him in order to atone. He also explains that Soze set up the lineup in New York in order to get them together. They don't like the idea of working for him, and Fenster even leaves in the middle of the night to avoid it. However, once Fenster's body is discovered and threats are made against each of the remaining crook's family members, they concede that they must do the job.
Initially the job goes smoothly. Kint stays behind per Keaton's orders, Hockney sets the explosives, Keaton plays the decoy and McManus uses his sharp-shooting skills. But then Hockney is shot from behind and Keaton and McManus don't find any drugs on the ship. Then McManus is stabbed in the back and Keaton is shot in the back by the faceless figure and we are back to the first scene in the movie with the faceless figure on an upper level of the freighter.
As Kint is recounting his story, an FBI agent named Jack Baer (Giancarlo Esposito) is investigating some of the survivors of the freighter disaster, specifically one Hungarian man who saw Keyser Soze's face. He has a translator and a sketch artist working with the Hungarian to come up with a drawing of Soze. Baer also discovers that one of the dead bodies was a crook turned states evidence who had seen Soze's face and knew many details about his business. It was this person and his knowledge that was being sold, not drugs. Soze organized the attack by Keaton and his crew so that he could go after Marquez. Kujan informs Kint of this and theorizes that Keaton is Keyser Soze and offers to have him turn state's evidence and protection. Kint refuses saying that he's not a rat and that he'll take his chances.
At this point, Kint retrieves his belongings, a gold watch, a gold cigarette lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Kujan and his Los Angeles contact Sgt Rabin (Dan Hedaya) are talking in Rabin's office where the interview with Kint had been conducted. As they're talking, Kujan looks around Rabin's office and sees words that were prominent in his conversation with Kint where amongst papers on Rabin's corkboard behind where Kujan had been sitting. He drops his coffee cup and it shatters on the ground. Specifically he sees Redfoot as an alias on a wanted poster and on the bottom of his coffee cup is the name Kobayashi. There are multiple shots of his coffee cup hitting the floor from different angles that helps set the tone of the big reveal. Furthermore the use of previously spoken dialogue while Kujan is spotting the words emphasizes the impact of what has been discovered.
He runs out to look for Kint as the fax comes in from the hospital where the Hungarian was dictating Soze's appearance and the faxed drawing looks like Kint. The camera cuts to Kint, focusing on his legs as he walks with the limp and crippled leg we've seen throughout the film, and within a few steps he's walking normally (Kint becoming Soze) and gets into a car with Kobayashi while Kujan is still on the street looking for him.
Again, this is a great film. In a manner, the theme is similar to the relationship between Samwise Gamgee and Sméagol/Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy where Sam refuses to allow Gollum to escape his past. In both cases, an antagonist's refusal to allow the protagonist to grow keeps them from being a better person.