Movie Retro: The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects was on cable earlier, and even though I have that movie on DVD, whenever I see that it's on, I try to watch even just a little bit of it.

I still remember back in 1995, when this came out in theaters. I still lived in the Upper East Side back then and on my walk to the subway to go to school (I was a junior at Stern then), I would see these ads that asked in bold letters: "Who is Keyser Soze?". Those ads of course were for The Usual Suspects. My curiosity was piqued, but I don't think I watched it till September or October, after it had been in theaters for a while.

What finally convinced me to watch it though was a conversation I had in school with 2 of my best friends: The Big D and Danny J. They told me how they watched the movie the week before, and I asked them how it was. They said it was really good, and I should watch it. I then said "Yeah, I see those ads that say 'Who is Keyser Soze?'", and they just replied "Just watch it." Then, as the cherry on top, Danny J starts doing his Benicio del Toro/Fenster impersonation from the police lineup scene - "Hand me the keys you f**king c**ksucker"; and well, you just have to know Danny J to truly appreciate it. Let's just say it was pure Danny J though. To this day, ever so often, we still bust out our impersonation Danny J impersonating Fenster.

I remember when I finally saw it; it was a cold, rainy night and I basically woke my sister up from her nap because she and her boyfriend at the time said they would watch it with me. She was not happy at all to be dragged out of her warm bed to travel in the rain. But needless to say, by the time the movie was over, she had no regrets.

I'll try to keep it spoiler-free, even though I honestly doubt you'd be reading this blog and have never watched The Usual Suspects. But anyways, in retrospect, the movie isn't perfect by any means - the twists at the end can be confusing to keep track of and explain, but you just have to love sitting there for 2 hours being led through a labyrinth. And to paraphrase Roddy Piper - at the end, just when you think you have the answer, they change the question.

The acting was superb, and it launched Kevin Spacey and Benicio del Toro's careers, and further confirmed Gabriel Byrne's skills. This also launched Bryan Singer's directorial career, and in spite of my issues with SupermanReturns, I'm pretty glad he did the Supes movie, as well as Apt Pupil, X-Men and X2.

I can understand though why some people would not like the plot, as you can get a feeling of being shortchanged, as there are just more questions than answers at the end (what was real? what was not?) . But not for nothing, it also had one of my favorite movie quotes of all time, when Kevin Spacey as Verbal Kint said "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world, he didnt' exist."

So anyway, I just wanted to write bout how much I love this movie. In the ErwiNation, it gets 7 Nations. If you've never seen it, go rent it.