Monday, March 5, 2012

Movie #98 - The Usual Suspects

Verbal Kint: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Overtime

The Usual Suspects


Usually films about deception keep the viewer in the loop, but The Usual Suspects does exactly the opposite, deceiving the characters and the viewers, except for Verbal Kint (played by Kevin Spacey) who held all the cards and carefully dazzled everyone - me included, till Special Agent Dave Kujan (played by Chazz Palminteri) and the sketch artist's impression figures out for us just who Keyser Söze truly is. Now that's intrigue at its best.



While some see this film as confusing, I see it as a rigged puzzle which plays on your intelligence; the story/screenplay written by Christopher McQuarrie is simply brilliant - and he deservedly won an Academy Award for his effort. Then the actors, Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey - who won an Academy Award for his excellent performance as the exceptionally good liar, Verbal Kint; Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollack, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio del Toro and Pete Postlethwaite, were all outstanding.

Finally Bryan Singer's direction was the finally piece of this rigged puzzle of a film, he elegantly shot it in a manner that the truth keeps shifting and his use of wide screen format was simply beautiful.

This is one classic and unpredictable thriller.

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