*** (out of ****)
Starring Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Benicio Del Toro, Suzy Amis, Giancarlo Esposito, and Dan Hedaya.
Directed by Bryan Singer and written by Chris McQuarrie.
1995
106 min R
Agatha Christie once said that readers don’t like mysteries, they like solutions, and I’ll probably begin two- or three-dozen reviews with that quote. “The Usual Suspects” is a movie so clever that it creates the illusion of being a tightly-constructed mystery and solution. Strictly speaking, it is not a mystery, because by the end of the film almost all the evidence has been discredited. The “solution” fits the remaining tolerable evidence—just as almost any “solution” would—but only because we are shown it and not, like in a true resolution, because it is inexorably tied to all that has gone before. Why is the “solution” not tied to what has gone before it? (Here I imagine the film’s admirers gawking with disbelief). Because, by definition, almost nothing has gone before it. Unfortunately I have to be purposely vague to keep from ruining the surprise, but I will say that “The Usual Suspects” wants to eat its cake and have it, too; it wants us to congratulate it on a cinematic sleight-of-hand, yet still use its deceit as proof of why the movie must end the way it does. The two are mutually exclusive, unless we just function on faith.
“The Usual Suspects” is also not as tightly-wound as it would like to think it is, and could actually be considered three movies pushed together, the second of which only existing, by the movie’s own admission, because one lawyer didn’t get to a police station as fast as another lawyer. All that said, I’ll go on about why I like “The Usual Suspects:” it tells the story of five hoods brought together in a police line-up and the three heists they consequently pull. The first heist (and therefore the first movie) is against the New York police themselves, in a section of the film in which barely a word is uttered that does not portray police officers as corrupt or incompetent. The second is against a wealthy art dealer (I think) in L.A. after the hoods pay a visit to someone who will buy their stolen gemstones. The final heist (and therefore final movie) involves the assault of a cargo ship on behalf of an unseen, omnipotent arch-criminal named Keyser Soze. The hoods have all inadvertently stolen from the Keyser, and while he could have our men and their families killed whenever he wants, he decides to grant them an opportunity at redemption by slaughtering his enemies on the boat. Held together by being shown in flashback, these three episodes are not as disjointed as they appear in summary. Written by Christopher McQuarrie, whose inferior “The Way of the Gun” makes transparent some of what initially seems clever in “The Usual Suspects,” he has a tendency to make plots seem more complicated than they really are.
What I liked about the movie were the characters, the winding, albeit convoluted plot, the action sequences, and the film’s willingness to exist somewhere between reality and caricature. Our five hoods are sharply defined, enjoyable archetypes of sleaziness: there’s the slob who doesn’t care about anything (Kevin Pollak), there’s the shifty foreigner who slurs all his words and is probably a pedophile (Benicio Del Toro), there’s the professional with the wild streak (Stephen Baldwin), and there’s the ex-cop turned ex-con trying to go straight (Gabriel Byrne). Lastly, there’s Kevin Spacey in the first of his Oscar-winning performances as the slow, innocent one, the timid-talker with the bad leg. We see most of the film through his eyes, including his admiration for Byrne, his aw-shucks attitude when the others like his plan to rob the police, and his fear-turned-anger at the hands of the authorities. They’re not quite as memorable as the Reservoir Dogs, even with the advantage of being able to dress differently.
Director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie detach us from some of the violence by their cheerful willingness to exaggerate and toy with conventions of the crime genre. A complex, worldwide criminal network exists in “The Usual Suspects,” in which everyone knows everyone else, there’s a lingo that involves lots of cursing, and all the thugs work so hard they should probably just get real jobs. The arch-criminal dresses sometimes like Snidely Whiplash and sometimes like Gary Oldman’s Dracula; one of the cops wears a fedora; and we meet a jewel thief who for all the world looks just like a jewel thief. The action sequences are intense without being overwrought, and the relationship among our five sleazebags is reminiscent of old war movies in which a bunch of guys who don’t like each other are thrown together by circumstance. By the end we like them more and they dislike each other less.
So why did I begin my review by debunking the film’s ending? Because that’s where the controversy lays; the film’s detractors find the end manipulative and spiteful, admirers practically worship it. I like it and think it’s pretty clever, and I accept the paradox that it can’t be two things at once. I guess I just wanted to begin with a public service announcement, to bring the two sides together, to compromise.
Finished April 12, 2002
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