The Usual Suspects (1995) stands out as an incredible film for so many reasons, but these reasons all revolve around the many talented actors assembled – Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollack, Chazz Palminteri, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, and especially Kevin Spacey as “the Gimp,” Roger “Verbal” Kint. As is so often true with character-based films, quality acting creates lasting memories.
Spacey goes all out here. He aggressively prepared for his Kint role, filing his shoes down to create the kind of wear they would get if he actually had a limp and gluing his fingers together to simulate the effects of a disability. And this kind of attention to detail paid off. Even though he’d been acting in movies for almost a decade when he took the role in The Usual Suspects, his turn as Kint solidified our appreciation of his talent and opened more leading roles up to him in films like American Beauty, K-Pax, Shipping News, and Beyond the Sea.
The Usual Suspects also benefits from great writing. Christopher McQuarrie’s script, highlighted by Spacey’s voice-over narration and the witty dialogue between Palminteri’s Kujan and Spacey’s Kint, reflects and enhances the masterful balance and layering of the film.
Beyond the writing, Bryan Singer’s ability to create a masterpiece out of “the concept of a movie poster of five guys in a lineup” never ceases to amaze. This movie is one of those that gets better on repeat viewings, even if you know the film’s surprise ending. The movie accomplishes the feat of bringing together so many different stories, people and effects and flows them concisely together through entertaining twists and turns that so much detail, so many tiny clues and hints to the film’s subtext, evades the viewer’s eye that only multiple viewings can detect.
Singer’s genius lies in his ability to not only do the best job directing possible (and by the end of the film you’ll notice that he’s not only an expert at visual misdirection, but also a master at wrapping you up in the story), but to have the flexibility to allow actors to build complex, entertaining characters, like Benicio Del Toro’s quick, unintelligible Fenster. These things combined – the breathtaking tension of the film, the smooth, cool hilariousness of characters like Fenster, McManus and the assortment of ‘usual suspects’ – pushes the movie beyond a sharp mystery to a truly unique work of art.
And this is a mystery: The American Film Institute has listed The Usual Suspects as one of the top ten mysteries. What mystery does this film address, what questions does it ask? Here’s a challenge, what questions did the movie ask of you and what fears do the possible answers give you?
Daniel Preus
Film Club Co-President
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