Amazon.com Essentials:
Ever since this convoluted thriller dazzled audiences and
critics in 1995 and won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie's twisting
screenplay, The Usual Suspects has continued to divide movie
lovers into opposite camps. While a lot of people take great pleasure
from the movie's now-famous central mystery (namely, "Who is Keyser
Söze?"), others aren't so easily impressed by a movie that's too
enamored of its own cleverness to make much sense. After all, what are
we to make of a final scene that renders the entire movie obsolete?
Half the fun of The Usual Suspects is the debate it provokes
and the sheer pleasure of watching its dynamic cast in action, led (or
should we say, mislead) by Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey as the
club-footed con man who recounts the saga of enigmatic Hungarian
mobster Keyser Söze. Spacey's in a band of thieves that includes
Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, and Benicio Del Toro,
all gathered in a plot to steal a large shipment of cocaine. The story
is told in flashback as a twisted plot being described by Spacey's
character to an investigating detective (Chazz Palmintieri), and
The Usual Suspects is enjoyable for the way it keeps the viewer
guessing right up to its surprise ending. Whether that ending will
enhance or extinguish the pleasure is up to each viewer to
decide. Even if it ultimately makes little or no sense at all, this is
a funny and fiendish thriller, guaranteed to entertain even its vocal
detractors. --Jeff Shannon
Amazon.com Essentials:
Ever since this convoluted thriller dazzled audiences and
critics in 1995 and won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie's twisting
screenplay, The Usual Suspects has continued to divide movie
lovers into opposite camps. While a lot of people take great pleasure
from the movie's now-famous central mystery (namely, "Who is Keyser
Söze?"), others aren't so easily impressed by a movie that's too
enamored of its own cleverness to make much sense. After all, what are
we to make of a final scene that renders the entire movie obsolete?
Half the fun of The Usual Suspects is the debate it provokes
and the sheer pleasure of watching its dynamic cast in action, led (or
should we say, mislead) by Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey as the
club-footed con man who recounts the saga of enigmatic Hungarian
mobster Keyser Söze. Spacey's in a band of thieves that includes
Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, and Benicio Del Toro,
all gathered in a plot to steal a large shipment of cocaine. The story
is told in flashback as a twisted plot being described by Spacey's
character to an investigating detective (Chazz Palmintieri), and
The Usual Suspects is enjoyable for the way it keeps the viewer
guessing right up to its surprise ending. Whether that ending will
enhance or extinguish the pleasure is up to each viewer to
decide. Even if it ultimately makes little or no sense at all, this is
a funny and fiendish thriller, guaranteed to entertain even its vocal
detractors. --Jeff Shannon
