BIG'S BIG MOVIE LIST

 

A good crime drama is a thing of beauty. To my mind, the more complex the crime, the greater the payoff.

 

Bryan Singer's “The Usual Suspects” offers a complex story delivered in an accessible and timely package presented by an ensemble cast of characters.

A bloody confrontation on a boat in San Pedro harbor leaves dozens of men dead and has only one known survivor: the palsied Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey), who recounts to the authorities the events leading up to the massacre. Everything began when Kint was arrested and brought in for a police lineup along with four other men (Kevin Pollack, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, and Gabriel Byrne) who are suspected of being involved in the highjacking of a weapons truck.

 

     The story alternates between Verbal explaining his story to the police in the present and the events weeks prior that began with the highjacking. The five men team up and perform a series of well orchestrated heists that end up catching up to them when they are presented with an unsettling fact: their meeting in the police lineup was no coincidence. Each man has stolen from a mysterious and elusive criminal mastermind, Keyser Soze (so-zay), and Soze has gone to great lengths to assure that each man pays what he owes.

 

       This is one of the great plot twist films of the 90's alongside “The Sixth Sense” “Se7en” and “Fight Club” to name a few.While a second viewing of the film shows subtle hints throughout as to the true identity of the legendary Soze, the initial reveal is mind blowing. The components of this taut crime drama are woven together masterfully, culminating in a final scene that left my jaw in my lap. The movie has a balanced mixture of scripted and ad-libbed scenes, with an inscrutable accented Benicio Del Toro stealing the show whenever he is on screen. This is also an early appearance of Giancarlo “Gus Freng” Esposito from Breaking Bad as an FBI agent.