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Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, Benicio Del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite, Giancarlo Esposito, Suzy Amis, Dan Hedaya
Director: Bryan Singer
Producers: Michael McDonnell and Bryan Singer
Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie
Cinematography: Newton Thomas Sigel
Music: John Ottman
UK Distributor: Gramercy Pictures
There's very few films these days that actually make you want to start clapping as the screen fades to black and the credits come up but this little expected movie manages to elicit that all-too rare feeling.
Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Spacey and Pete Postlethwaite front an impressive, slickly made film full of more twists an turns than the maze at Hampton Court.
As the story unfolds, flitting backwards and forwards in time, the legend of gangster Keyser Soze builds to Robin Hood proportions.
Who is he? What does he look like? Does he even exist?
Meanwhile, crippled con Spacey retells his story that fateful night he and the other criminals hired for a very special job became entwined in a deadly game of mind numbing complexity.
To reveal too much would be unfair as this is a beautifully constructed tale of lies, deceit and greed.
Unusually good.
© 1995 Roger Crow
There are some classic films that arrive at your local multiplex with all guns blazing and a multi-million dollar ad campaign. Then there are other little movies which sneak in the back door, ease their way into your subconscious and stay with you for years afterwards.
That was the case with The Usual Suspects, Bryan Singer's 1995 crime thriller which paid homage to dramas of old and became one of the most memorable movies of that year.
Gabriel Byrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin and Kevin Spacey play the criminals who join forces after meeting up in jail. It becomes apparent they are not together by accident and before long it seems darker forces are at work.
That's the easy synopsis. The more complex version would fill this paper and probably still leave you asking a few questions. Suffice to say, this is the most stylish film of the week with one of the greatest twists of the Nineties.
It was penned by Christopher McQuarrie, a young writer who had worked with director Bryan Singer earlier on a film called Public Access. During this time they came up with the idea of a film poster featuring a gang of eclectic crims in a police line-up, bearing the incendiary tagline: 'All of you can go to hell'.
It was a striking image and powerful enough to warrant further investigation.
McQuarrie had been working for a legal firm to pay the rent and over the weeks, found that elements of his daily life started seeping into the screenplay.
One day he met a lawyer called Keyser Sume and remarked he had a great name for a movie character. "You're going to be the villain in a film some day," he remarked.
For one reason and another, he became the villainous, now legendary Keyser Soze.
This haunting figure - the focal point of the movie - was inspired by a Fifties New Jersey murderer who killed his entire family and was eventually caught 17 years later thanks to a TV special.
With the villain of the piece fully realised, the rest of the characters started to take shape, inspired by McQuarrie's colleagues and bosses. The name of the office manager was Dave Kujan (here played by Chazz Palminteri) and the rest of the characters started to take shape based on other attorneys, including Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro) and Jeff Rabin (Dan Hedaya).
In the early days, the script had been taken round every studio in Hollywood, all of them turning it down before British company Polygram picked up the absurdly cheap tab of $6million.
It may have cost next to nothing to make but scraping together that lowly sum was still fraught with difficulties. Even while filming was underway, the plug was almost pulled on a daily basis. Of course, it eventually did see the light of day and went down a storm at Cannes and other major film festivals, eventually grossing more than four times its production cost.
The movie is not without its faults: Pete Postlethwaite's accent could have done with more work and the inclusion of Stephen Baldwin was obviously a decision based on lack of cash - Mike Baldwin probably would have been a better choice.
However, with some gorgeous lighting, a terrific score and editing by John Ottman complementing the double whammy of Singer's direction and McQuarrie's script, this is the perfect reply to those who moan: "They don't make 'em like that any more".
The movie's knock-on effect was also very interesting. Spacey (winner of Best Supporting Actor at the 1995 Academy Awards) soon became the hottest star on the planet and looks a dead cert to win another Oscar this week for American Beauty.
Both Byrne and Pollack went on to star in Arnold Schwarzenegger's disappointing End of Days, while Singer is now putting the finishing touches to his long awaited X Men movie, co-written by McQuarrie.
Like a fine bottle of wine, The Usual Suspects is good to the last drop, or should that be the last line: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
Bryan Singer may have $75million to spend on his latest movie but the greatest trick he ever pulled was delivering a cracking thriller for the same price as Posh Spice's clothing allowance.
© 2000 Roger Crow
