5 more reviews

1. ›Film Review: The Usual Suspects (1995)@drax1259d

   

   Success of Quentin Tarantino in mid 1990s gave huge boost to American independent cinema, at least those film makers willing to make gangster films with low budget and plenty of creativity. Among those that benefited the trend the most were authors of The Usual Suspects, 1995 film directed by Bryan Singer.

   The plot begins one night at port of San Pedro, California where a ship becomes site of extremely bloody confrontation between rival groups of criminals. The event left 27 people dead and the only two survivors are badly burned Hungarian gangster and Verbal Kint (played by Kevin Spacey), small time confidence artist arrested over weapon possession. Dave Kujan (played by Chaz Palminteri) is US Customs agent who investigates event and he starts to interrogate Kint. Kint explains that everything began six weeks earlier in New York City when he was brought to police lineup as potential suspect for alleged truck hijacking. Four other suspects were hardened and experienced criminals – Fred Fenster (played by Benicio del Toro), Michael McManus (played by Stephen Baldwin), Todd Hockney (played by Kevin Pollak) and Dean Keaton (played by Gabriel Byrne). Four men, while they are kept together in cell, begin plotting actual crime and Keaton, who used to be a policeman, reluctantly agrees to take part in robbery of jewel smuggler protected by his corrupt colleague. They travel to California to fence the loot, but their contact wants them to make another robbery which goes very wrong. It turns out that the they are being manipulated by mysterious, demonic and semi-legendary Turkish crime lord known as Keyser Söze.

   Script was written by Christopher McQuarrie, film maker who would later become very successful working with Tom Cruise. He took inspiration from various sources that range from Casablanca (title was borrowed from one of that film’s dialogue lines) to Reservoir Dogs, another film about group of diverse criminals gathered for ill-fated heist. But The Usual Suspects is, at the end of the day, rather original film that delivers interesting, fascinating story with sharply drawn characters, non-linear narration and various twists, including the ending which is deliberately made ambiguous and until this time subject of various discussions on Internet. Great deal of credit for that should also go to Bryan Singer, director who tried very hard and succeeded in making The Usual Suspects as different from Tarantino’s films as possible. He handled relatively low budget very well, maintained the rapid pace of the plot and kept audience’s attention towards the end of the film. Unsurprisingly, mainstream Hollywood took notice and this film was important stepping stone towards Singer’s career heights with X-Men series.

   Another important ingredient for this film’s success is the cast. It was made mostly of character actors or those who, like young Stephen Baldwin, were at the time best known for their work in independent cinema. McQuarrie’s characters have very little background, but they are played by great talents who can extract a lot even from relatively little material. This is especially so with actors playing ill-fated group of criminals, like Benicio del Toro who adds unusual speech patterns to character of Fenster. But the most impressive performance belongs to Kevin Spacey, who was at the time establishing himself as genuine Hollywood star. Role of Verbal Kint played important part in that process. He starts as crippled and weak conman forced to use his brains instead of brawns, later transforms into pathetic wreck before leaving the audience with huge and tantalising question mark. Some of his dialogue lines in films became popular throughout the years and source of many Internet memes. Although the old style music score by John Ottman (who also worked as film’s editor) seems somewhat anachronistic and distracting, The Usual Suspects, which was awarded by Oscars for Spacey and McQuarrie, is still a very good film that could be recommended to viewers who like old fashioned mystery mixed with good acting.

   RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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2. ›The Usual Suspects (1995)@minhajulmredol1425d

   Boring nights can be best enjoyed with a crime-thriller movie which is always a great watch for me. I mostly go with this genre, often in the end some twists are like blowing our heads. You would get perplexed about how things went on, and that's the thrill I enjoy the most in such lost moments.

   Image Source

   The usual suspects is a crime thriller film directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie. During these kinda thriller movies I find it hard to approach the story without any spoilers, I really really find it absurd to reveal everything and spoil the fun. Yet, I must give you something to start with, right? Let's move on with a simple kickstart.

   The movie is actually in two timelines, one is the events from someone's flashbacks in an FBI interrogation room and the other is that of ongoing interrogations and their surrounding incidents.

   In the very first scene, we would see one of our lead roles Gabriel Byrne as Dean Keaton, wounded and shot by someone anonymous on a ship, and then a massive explosion, and all of these are also witnessed by someone from hiding.

   In the present timeline, Kevin Spacey as Roger 'Verbal' Kint is getting interrogated about his presence and something from the past he witnessed. Actually, the story is about a group of criminals including Keaton, verbal, and a few more. Six weeks earlier they were arrested for a truck hijacking which they denied and got bailed in the end, for revenge they exposed an illegal activity of cops, and through their these kinda crimes deals they were into great trouble to do a task for a crime lord named as Keyser Soze, whom no one has ever seen, he has every detail about this group and wants them to do a task for which they weren't prepared for.

   Okay, enough details, further discussed then those will be pure spoilers and I don't wanna put you guys through that. Let me take you guys from what I already mentioned, remember the first scene I mentioned? That's the part of the deal which Keyser Soze had offered them, verbal was actually describing those flashbacks, FBI was after Keyser Soze and trying to figure out who he was. Well, Keaton was the prime suspect of the FBI agent Jack who was hearing those flashbacks from verbal.

   The story got complex, right? Actually, it's not as much as it may sound while letting you go through, you might need to wait for half of its runtime to actually catch what's going on one after another and then wait till the end for the massive explosion inside your head to see the master strike of the movie, hehehe. That ending was so amazing that I couldn't expect to be more satisfied than that. The whole cast did a fabulous job, everyone was outstanding with their part, making me hooked with a lot of eagerness to solve the puzzle.

   So it was a fantastic watch, I really enjoyed it till the end. Highly recommended if you are looking for a crime thriller to watch. It got some action-packed thriller to leave you perplexed. Go for it, you won't regret it, Happy Watching!

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3. ›The Usual Suspects - a great movie with the most unexpected finale you will ever see@aurzeq1524d

   "The Greatest Trick The Devil Ever Pulled Was Convincing The World He Did Not Exist."

   
   

   

   Source

   Plot

   A customs officer named David Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) is investigating a ship explosion at the San Pedro, California harbor. The person who ignited the fire killed the whole crew, as well as criminal Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), who was gunned down in the hold. Kujan interrogates the single survivor, the limping Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey), a small-time thief, in the hopes of piecing together what happened. Kint tells him about meeting some well-known criminals during an American-style confrontation required following the theft of a truckload of guns a few weeks before: fences Mc Manus (Stephen Baldwin) and Fenster (Benicio del Toro), explosives expert Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollack), and former corrupt cop Dean Keaton. During the discussion, Mc Manus proposes framing a bunch of corrupt cops involved in drug and emerald trafficking to get revenge and cause issues for the NYPD (who orchestrated the confrontation). The robbery is successful, and the criminals arrive in California, where a fence will aid in the placement of the stolen emeralds; however, the group is approached with the opportunity to commit another robbery, this time against a jewelry dealer; the group agrees, but things do not go as planned, and three men are killed. McManus then reveals that a lawyer, Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), who works for boss Keyser Söze, has given him information regarding the jobs to be carried out. The gang realizes they can't back down in the face of Söze's demands, and he eventually orders them to assassinate the crew of an enemy Argentinean trafficking ship, dispose of the drugs, and take the money; Kujan will have to retrace Kint's steps to figure out how things really happened.

   

   ##### [Source](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.flicks.com.au%2Fmovie%2Fthe-usual-suspects%2F&psig=AOvVaw1twbdRdathwBwA0AubHYDj&ust=1651079556941000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCNClqOecsvcCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAb)

   Why you should watch it?

   • An Oscar-winning thriller: The Usual Suspects is a high point in director Bryan Singer's and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie's careers, with the latter winning the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for this compelling script. Singer, for one, has a lot of fun with a clean and exciting action directing, in which even the most outrageous moments are somehow justified by the finale of the movie, which is one of the decade's most intriguing turning points. The Usual Suspects is compelling and unforgettable on the first viewing, but it takes on a new meaning on the second and subsequent viewings, when you can appreciate the interpretative and directorial nuances better. Spacey's performance as Verbal earned him his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, propelling him to international acclaim for his undoubted acting abilities. It's 1995, and Spacey has more than ten acting credits to his name, but it's with the role of swindler Verbal Kint that he finally manages to unleash his full ability and trace a path to success (or almost).

   

   Source

   • An amazing screenplay: An interlocking structure based on a clockwork screenplay that has been oiled down to its smallest gear in order to provide the highest level of mystery involvement within a mystery/detective story in which unexpected twists and betrayals are always around the corner, including a revelatory epilogue. The film's conclusion prompts a second viewing of the film in order to decipher the intricacies relating to the real sequence of events and Söze's phantom identity as an earthly devil who can change the fate of the characters at will. Bryan Singer exploits Christopher McQuarrie's informative writing with lucid cohesion and gives life to an organic mise-en-scene based on details and false leads. In a story that follows Verbal Kint, the gang's sole survivor, who begins telling his version of events during an informal interrogation from the very first minutes, alternating filmic present and flashback in a refined and balanced narrative dichotomy in which the deception is perpetrated through a deceiving realism that squeezes the viewer's acumen through dense dialogues in order to try to distinguish reality from lies.

   

   Source

   Conclusion

   This is one of my favorite movies of all time, with probably the most unexpected finale I have ever seen. I clearly remember that after finishing the movie I was really excited and mind-blowed. I strongly suggest to everyone to look at this movie at least once in their lives.

   A fan fact about the movie is that the famous scene of the lineup (see the image below) should have been serious in the original idea of Singer, but since the actor continued to improvise and make "disturbing noises" he decided to keep the scence as it was. The other actors told that the main reason why they coudn't keep it togheter and remian serious, was that Benicio Del Toro was constantly farting during the scene 😂.

   

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   Rating

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   9/10

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   If you enjoyed the post, please leave an upvote and/or a comment, and feel free to follow me (at the link below) if you want to see my next horror movie review.

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4. ›The Usual Suspects (film): I love this film but there are many that do not@gooddream2757d

   What is it that creates such a big divide over this film? I have my suspicions that a lot of the opinion comes from some people could read the twist at the end coming from a mile away, other people (like me) had no idea. I think those that found the twist to be a complete surprise loved it and the other group was quite "me"

   

   I have been very careful to avoid spoilers in this write-up. If you have already seen this movie I would appreciate if you do the same seeing as how the twist is major part of the story and it would be a tragic spoiler to reveal.

   The movie is told from the perspective of someone who has already seen everything that happened. It is narrated for the most part by Roger "Verbal" Kint (played by the now disgraced Kevin Spacey.) He and one other person are the survivors of a massacre that happened on a boat in the San Pedro Bay. A NYC detective is flown in to interrogate "Verbal" about what happened on the boat and this is how the story is told - with various flashbacks to events that already occurred.

   

   I feel as though the film was directed quite well by Bryan Singer and it is easy to forget that this is actually a narrated story as they seemlessly trail of Spacey's voice and allow the action to take over - if that makes any sense.

   The characters are incredible and the story focuses mainly on the crew of 5 criminals with varying skills to contribute to their effectiveness as a heist team. These are the people in the main movie poster and unless I am mistaken they actually aren't ever referred to as "The Usual Suspects" in the film (prove me wrong.)

   I think one of my favorite things about this film is Michael McManus who is played by Stephen Baldwin in one of the only good roles he has ever had the chance to play.

   

   Stephen handles the role of a weapons expert and stealthy assassin as well as being just a cocky guy in general to a "T." Prior to this film he did independent films almost exclusively and not long after he returned to doing that again. I have no idea why but i have heard rumors that he is difficult to work with and is a bit of a religious nutjob.

   I have a difficult time relating to why it is that someone wouldn't like this movie but I have spoken to several individuals who can't understand why anyone WOULD like it. I guess it is just a matter of opinion. I am on the former team and highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys crime thrillers that at least in my opinion, is directed really well and has an ending you don't expect.

   8 / 10

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5. ›Կասկածելի անձինք (The Usual Suspects, 1995)@panza2991d

   Հինգ հոգի թմրամիջոցների հետ կապված գողության մեջ կասկածվողներից են: Սակայն նրանցից ոչ մեկը չի ներգրավված: Նրանք փորձում են փոխհատուցել ոստիկանությանը, սակայն, ինչպես պարզվում է, դրանք տեղադրելու գաղափարը պատվերների խնամակալներին չի պատկանում, այլեւ խորհրդավոր եւ սարսափելի հանցագործին.

   IMG

   Ես խորապես երախտապարտ եմ Բրիան երգչուհուն այնպիսի իմաստալից պատկերի համար: Ռեժիսորը նետում է ինձ մի գաղափարից մյուսը, ամբողջ ֆիլմը, ինչպես առեղծվածային, նա առաջ է իմ ուղեղի աշխատանքից: Ես պետք է մի քանի անգամ գամել ֆիլմը, հասկանալու համար, թե ինչ է ասել: Սյուժեի ներխուժումները պահվում են անընդհատ լարվածության մեջ: Որքան ավելի շատ անհասկանալի է առաջին տեսանյութը, այնքան շատ եք զարմանում, թե ինչպես հետագա գործողությունները կապված են դրա հետ: «Ով է դառնում բոլոր քիթը»: Այս հարցը կախված է ֆիլմի ավարտին, որը արժանի է վերանայել, նույնիսկ չնայած ամբողջ հողամասի կախվածությունը իսկապես անսպասելի ավարտին.

   Ֆիլմի հերոսներից յուրաքանչյուրը ունի որոշակի սխալներ: Ոստիկանությունը կաշառակեր է, կոպիտ, անտեղյակ: Նրանք ոչինչ չունեն ոչինչ անելուց, բայց նրանք հաջողությամբ տեղափոխում են թմրադեղերի տոհմեր, իրենց անօդաչու թռչող սարքերում եւ գործերում անմեղ են: Հարցումներն աննշան օգտագործվում են, ոստիկանության աշխատակիցները գործում են պարզեցված սխեմայի համաձայն, փորձելով տեղեկատվություն հեռացնել միջնադարյան մեթոդներով: Հերոսները իրավացիորեն վերցրին այդպիսի ոստիկանությունը, բայց նրանք չէին կարողանում տեսնել հեռուստադիտողին, թե որքան դրական հեղինակություն է, որ իջնում ​​է այն մարդկանց, ովքեր չեն ճանաչում պայմանագիրը: Հստակ հակասություն, թե ինչ ենք մենք տեսնում, դա չէ: Բայց կյանքին մոտ, ճշմարտությունը: Ֆիլմում ասվում է, որ յուրաքանչյուրը ունի իր սեփական փաթաթվածը, եւ մենք բոլորս համաձայն ենք ժամանակ առ ժամանակ խղճի հետ: Բայց մենք պետք է հիշենք, թե որքան հեշտ եւ պարզ կարելի է իջնել եւ ապա խավարի իշխանը, այս դեպքում անձի համար կպչուն կլիներ մեզ համար:

   Պատկերը ասում է, որ երբեմն պետք է ավելի խորությամբ նայել, որպեսզի տեսնեն, թե ամեն ինչ շատ պարզ է: Այնուամենայնիվ, առասպելական սատանայի վախը ֆիլմի հերոսները շտկում է եւ խանգարում նրանց մտածելակերպից, չնայած որ նրանք կարծես թե կոշտ տղաներ են: Վախը մեծ աչքեր ունի, հերոսների համար ավելի հեշտ է մահանալ, քան քրեական հետ քթի քիթը: Եվ վերջում, ինչպես բոլոր կողմից, անխուսափելիորեն, խելամիտ չարը հաղթում է ամբողջովին արդարացված: Ինչպես շախմատում, նա հաղթում է ավելի շատ առաջ շարժվելու համար: Ի վերջո, բոլոր փոքրիկ բուքս սերժանտները (ովքեր չգիտեն, թե ինչն է, լսելով ավագ ղեկավարությունը) եւ հիմնական նիշերը պարզապես խաղի մեջ էին:

   Իրավիճակի անընդհատ կրակելով `ռեժիսորը երբեմն ներգրավում է նկարահանումների տեսարաններ, բայց բոլոր աղերը երկխոսություններում: Մի ընկալեք դրանք, մի բան չեք հասկանում: Երկխոսությունների մասին պատկերն ավելի շատ է, բայց, այնուամենայնիվ, նրանք բոլորովին ձանձրալի չեն եւ խոսում են վառ կերպով, հաջողությամբ լրացնում են եւ սեղմված վիճակի իրավիճակը: Ես ուզում եմ նշել ուշագրավ խաղը, նա խաղում է որպես անխախտ, ինչպես իր բոլոր մյուս ֆիլմերում:

   Ցինիզմն ու սեւ ֆիլմերի բոլոր խավարը օգնում են ինձ առօրյա կյանքում նայել խոհեմությամբ, եւ այս նկարից հետո ես սիրահարվեցի այս ժանրին: Զարմանալիորեն, ֆիլմի ավարտից հետո ես ավելի լավ էի զգում ցնցուղում, գուցե այն պատճառով, որ կարողացա լիովին հասկանալ եւ հասկանալ այն, բայց գուցե տաքացա, որ իմ կյանքում չկա. Առավոտյան ֆիլմը դիտելուց հետո ես մտածեցի այս զարմանալի ստեղծագործության մասին երկար ժամանակ.

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