The Usual Suspects

After an explosion onboard a boat in the Los Angeles harbor at San Pedro, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) agrees to speak to Special Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) about the events leading up to the explosion. Kujan been obsessed with one of the crew involved, Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne,) and wants to make sure that he's dead. Verbal, Keaton, Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), McManus (Stephen Baldwin,) and Hockney (Kevin Pollack) are arrested and put into a lineup following a heist involving a truck with guns. While inside, the five hatch a plan to knock off a smuggling ring and end up pulling a few more jobs together in Los Angeles. While there, they're approached by Mr. Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite) and forced into pulling one more job, for his boss, Keyser Soze, a notorious crime boss. While the job goes down, something goes wrong and everyone dies but Verbal. And the investigation's biggest question is: Who is Keyser Soze?

It's a ride of terror in low places as the underbelly of the criminal class runs for their lives because the boogeyman has stuck his head out of the hole he's been hiding inside. And the players in this long-con are hiding under the covers. The waltz around the cops is playing and Verbal is in the middle of the floor, stepping each beat with poise as he spins his yarn. Kevin Spacey's Verbal Kint is a perfect narrator, his voice is perfectly soothing, lulling us into a tale of intrigue, betrayal and business. It's a fanciful, operatic and the dance's steps strut with confidence. The story's simplicity allows for the employment of the twist and misdirection applied by the film's editing and first person narrative to go smoothly with the correct amount of tension and cadence leading the audience, along with the cops into a trap of the plot's making. And we walk in with them and we love it as the jaws of the trap snap shut.

This cast is brilliant; comprehensibly. The lineup boys have a beautiful chemistry from the beginning that it's a shame there isn't a sequel. The cops (Paminteri and Giancarlo Esposito) also have a wonderful chemistry vs each other and also against Keaton and Kint. Palminteri and Spacey's rapport swells and throws down with grace, beauty, power and finesse. Their exchanges work so beautifully that they easily could play out on the stage, as could this film.

I'll not say more; because, as like Pulp Fiction, this one needs to be experienced. And if I do say more, it will spoil the twist for you and I don't want to do that!! All I will say is that this film is a brilliant piece of cinema and a film worth studying.

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IN: Gabriel Byrne

OUT: Kevin Spacey

COMING SOON: LA Confidential