The Usual Suspects
1995
**½
Director: Bryan Singer
Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Pete Postlethwaite, Stephen Bladwin, Benicio Del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Suzy Amis, Giancarlo Esposito, Peter Greene
Under questioning, a physically disabled small-time crook recounts how he and four other criminals met and carried out a job for the mysterious crime lord Keyser Söze, and how it all ended in a massacre. Bryan Singer's clever but self-satisfied crime mystery was over-hyped upon its release, and the subsequent years have done it no favours. In my opinion, the famous twist ending makes the whole exercise seem pointless, but fans of the film will argue that it's the main reason they love it. Although it's all well-acted, the characters remain utterly uninteresting, and I often found myself confused (that is, unengaged) what exactly the gang were hired to do and why. Nevertheless, Christopher McQuarrie's script and Kevin Spacey as the unreliable narrator won Academy Awards.
