The Usual Suspects (1995)

I want to start the article by saying that I do not condone the actions of one of the actors in the film and the reason for choosing the film had nothing to do with that said actor. The director Bryan Singer (X-Men) and the writer Christopher McQuarrie's (Edge Of Tomorrow) and the rest of the actors in the film's art should not suffer because of one man's actions. With that being said, the film I chose for today is 1995's The Usual Suspects which was Singer's second film and it tells the tale of one lone survivor's recounting of the chaos that ensued from New York to Los Angeles that ended with one major gunfight and destruction on some boats and all thanks to one random police lineup where they met. The film stars Stephen Baldwin (The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas) as McManus, Gabriel Byrne (Vampire Academy) as Keaton, Benicio Del Toro (The Hunted) as Fenster, Kevin Pollak (Buffalo '66) as Hockney, Chazz Palminteri (Vault) as Dave Kujan, Pete Postlethwaite (Inception) as Kobayashi, Suzy Amis (The Ballad Of Little Jo) as Edie Finneran, Giancarlo Esposito (Okja) as Jack Baer, Dan Hedaya (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) as Jeff Rabin, and Paul Bartel (Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills) as smuggler.

This was an interesting movie to say the least that took a different direction that most crime films. One thing that kind of bothered me is that if all of these guys did not know each other at all before the police lineup then why would you join up to do jobs in the first place? It's just such a random thing for me to believe that they would be as good as they were together if they didn't know each other before hand or maybe they are just that lucky. This ended up being one of those films where you were trying to figure out just who was Keyser Söze as they kept building up this character for the whole entire film as this mysterious enigma that apparently everyone was terrified of, but he was the link to all of them being there. As much as many of you may hate the man, he did a terrific job as he told the story and he kind of steals the show as the cripple who pretty much manipulates everyone and when you see the twist at the end, you're like I should have seen that coming. Chazz Palminteri also did an amazing job int he film and it was crazy to see him play a character that wasn't a mobster. I don't know what Benicio Del Toro's character was, but it was almost like he was the Boomhauer of New York. You could barely understand anything he was saying during the film which was kind of funny, but other than that it was an OK film. There wasn't anything revolutionary about it, but the caliber of actors was there and that was kind of what it had going for it. That is why I am going to give the film an B- for a final grade.