''The Usual Suspects'' is a 1995
neo-noir
Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during the post-World War II era in the United Statesroughly from 1940 to 1960. The French term, ''film noir'', translates literally to English as "black film", indicating ...
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
directed by
Bryan Singer
Bryan Jay Singer (born September 17, 1965) is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed.
After graduating from the University of Southern California, Singer d ...
and written by
Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie is an American filmmaker. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film ''The Usual Suspects'' (1995).
He made his directorial debut wit ...
. It stars
Stephen Baldwin
Stephen Andrew Baldwin (born May 12, 1966) is an American actor, producer and director. He has appeared in the films '' Born on the Fourth of July'' (1989), '' Posse'' (1993), '' 8 Seconds'' (1994), ''Threesome'' (1994), ''The Usual Suspects'' ...
,
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne (born 12 May 1950) is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, audiobook narrator, and author. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's s ...
,
Benicio del Toro
Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (born February 19, 1967) is a Puerto Rican actor and producer. He has garnered critical acclaim and numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Screen A ...
,
Kevin Pollak
Kevin Elliot Pollak (born October 30, 1957) is an American actor, comedian, impressionist and podcast host. He has appeared in over 80 films; his roles include Sam Weinberg in Rob Reiner's legal film ''A Few Good Men'', Jacob Goldman in '' Grump ...
,
Chazz Palminteri,
Pete Postlethwaite
Peter William Postlethwaite, (7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011) was an English character actor.
After minor television appearances, including in '' The Professionals'', his first major success arose through the British autobiographical fil ...
, and
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, obtaining supporting roles before gaining a leading man status in film and television. Spacey has received various accolades ...
.
The plot follows the interrogation of Roger "Verbal" Kint, a small-time
con man
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have def ...
, who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the
Port of Los Angeles
The Port of Los Angeles is a seaport managed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department, a unit of the City of Los Angeles. It occupies of land and water with of waterfront and adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach. Promoted as "America's Port", t ...
. Through
flashback and
narration
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to storytelling, convey a narrative, story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deli ...
, Kint tells an interrogator a convoluted story of events that led him and his criminal companions to the boat, and of a mysterious crime lord—known as
Keyser Söze
Keyser Söze ( ) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 film ''The Usual Suspects'', written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. According to the main protagonist, petty con artist Roger "Verbal" Kint ( ...
—who controlled them. The film was shot on a $6 million budget and began as a title taken from a column in ''
Spy
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
'' magazine called ''The Usual Suspects'', after one of
Claude Rains' most memorable lines in the classic film ''
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
'', and Singer thought that it would make a good title for a film.
The film was shown out of competition at the
1995 Cannes Film Festival and then initially released in a few theaters. It received favorable reviews and was eventually given a wider release. McQuarrie won the
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Awards, Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Be ...
and Spacey won the
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role while worki ...
for his performance. The
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers:
* The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO
* The Writers Guil ...
ranked the film as having the 35th greatest screenplay of all time.
Plot
Career criminal Dean Keaton lies badly wounded on a ship docked in
San Pedro Bay. He is confronted by a mysterious figure he calls "Keyser," who shoots him dead and sets fire to the ship. The next day, the police recover 27 bodies and only two survivors: Arkosh Kovash ("Ákos Kovács"), a Hungarian mobster hospitalized with severe burns, and Roger "Verbal" Kint, a con artist.
U.S. Customs
The United States Customs Service was the very first federal law enforcement agency of the U.S. federal government. Established on July 31, 1789, it collected import tariffs, performed other selected border security duties, as well as conducted ...
agent Dave Kujan flies to Los Angeles from New York City to interrogate Verbal. The men are left alone in a borrowed office belonging to
LAPD
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the third-large ...
police sergeant Jeff Rabin while FBI agent Jack Baer visits a hospitalized Kovash. The events that led Keaton, Verbal, and their associates onto the ship are then described by Verbal via
flashback.
Six weeks earlier in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Keaton and Verbal are arrested alongside fellow criminals Michael McManus, Fred Fenster, and Todd Hockney and placed in a
police lineup
A police lineup (in American English) or identity parade (in British English) is a process by which a crime victim or witness's putative identification of a suspect is confirmed to a level that can count as evidence (law), evidence at trial.
T ...
as suspects in a truck hijacking that none of them admits to participating in. Believing the police were unfairly harassing them, McManus proposes they pull a heist to get revenge on the
NYPD
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
. Trying to go straight, Keaton initially refuses but eventually agrees to help rob a jewel smuggler being escorted by corrupt cops, netting millions in emeralds, getting over fifty cops arrested after leaking their activities to the press. They then go to California to
fence
A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length.
...
the jewels through a man named Redfoot, who connects them with another jewel heist, but it goes badly and the contents are instead revealed to be
China White (synthetic heroin). The men learn that the job was arranged by a lawyer named Kobayashi, who says he arranged for their arrests in New York and that his employer, mysterious Turkish crime lord
Keyser Söze
Keyser Söze ( ) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 film ''The Usual Suspects'', written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. According to the main protagonist, petty con artist Roger "Verbal" Kint ( ...
, from whom each of the men has unwittingly stolen, has ordered them to raid a ship holding Argentinian drug dealers and destroy $91 million worth of cocaine being sold on board. The cash brought for the exchange will be their reward.
During Kujan's interrogation, it is learned that there was no cocaine on the ship and Söze was seen onboard. Verbal then tells Kujan a legend about Söze: he was a small-time
drug runner
The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs throug ...
who murdered his own family when they were being held hostage by Hungarian mobsters, then massacred the mobsters and their families before disappearing, and from then on conducted business only indirectly through underlings who are mostly unfamiliar with their true employer. Söze thus became a fearsome
urban legend
An urban legend (sometimes contemporary legend, modern legend, urban myth, or urban tale) is a genre of folklore comprising stories or fallacious claims circulated as true, especially as having happened to a "friend of a friend" or a family m ...
, "a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night."
Concluding his story, Verbal reveals Fenster was killed trying to flee; the men then threatened Kobayashi, only to accept the assignment when he threatened their loved ones. The men attacked the ship during the night, killing several Argentinian and Hungarian gangsters before discovering that there was no cocaine. An unseen assailant killed Hockney, McManus, Keaton, and a prisoner in one of the ship's cabins. The mysterious figure then set fire to the ship as Verbal looked on from a hiding place on the dock.
Kujan deduces that Keaton must be Söze, as the prisoner killed on the ship was Arturo Marquez, a smuggler who escaped prosecution by claiming he could identify Söze. Marquez was represented by lawyer Edie Finneran, Keaton's girlfriend, who was recently murdered. Kujan claims that the Argentinians took Marquez to sell him to Söze's Hungarian rivals. Keaton then used the assault so that he could kill Marquez personally and fake his own death. Verbal finally confesses that Keaton had been behind everything but refuses to testify in court. Verbal's bail is posted, and he is released.
Moments later, Kujan realizes Verbal apparently
fabricated his entire story by piecing together details from random items in Rabin's cluttered office. At the same time, Baer interrogates Kovash in his hospital bed, along with a
police artist who is creating a sketch. Meanwhile, Verbal walks outside, gradually losing his limp and flexing his supposedly disabled hand. As Kujan pursues Verbal, a fax arrives at the police station with the artist's
facial composite
A facial composite is a graphical representation of one or more eyewitnesses' memories of a face, as recorded by a composite artist. Facial composites are used mainly by police in their investigation of (usually serious) crimes. These images a ...
of Söze. The picture resembles Verbal, revealing that he was Söze the entire time. Verbal/Söze enters a car driven by "Kobayashi" and leaves moments before Kujan arrives on the scene.
Cast
*
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, obtaining supporting roles before gaining a leading man status in film and television. Spacey has received various accolades ...
as Roger 'Verbal' Kint /
Keyser Söze
Keyser Söze ( ) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 film ''The Usual Suspects'', written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. According to the main protagonist, petty con artist Roger "Verbal" Kint ( ...
:Singer and McQuarrie sent the screenplay for the film to Spacey without telling him which role was written for him. Spacey called Singer and told them that he was interested in the roles of Keaton and Kujan but was also intrigued by Kint who, as it turned out, was the role McQuarrie wrote with Spacey in mind.
*
Gabriel Byrne
Gabriel James Byrne (born 12 May 1950) is an Irish actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter, audiobook narrator, and author. His acting career began in the Focus Theatre before he joined London's Royal Court Theatre in 1979. Byrne's s ...
as Dean Keaton:
:Kevin Spacey met Byrne at a party and asked him to do the film. He read the screenplay and turned it down, thinking that the filmmakers could not pull it off. Byrne met screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and Singer and was impressed by the latter's vision for the film. However, Byrne was also dealing with some personal problems at the time and backed out for 24 hours until the filmmakers agreed to shoot the film in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, where Byrne lived, and make it in five weeks.
*
Chazz Palminteri as Agent Dave Kujan:
:Singer had always wanted Palminteri for the film, but he was always unavailable. The role was offered to
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Prolific in film, television and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Awar ...
and
Robert De Niro
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. ( , ; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor. Known for his collaborations with Martin Scorsese, he is considered to be one of the best actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades ...
, both of whom turned it down. The filmmakers even had
Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino (; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy ...
come in and read for the part, but he decided not to do it because he had just played a cop in ''
Heat
In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is al ...
''. Pacino would later say it was the one film he has regretted turning down the most. Palminteri became available, but only for a week. When he signed on, this persuaded the film's financial backers to support the film fully because he was a sufficiently high-profile star, thanks to the recent releases of ''
A Bronx Tale
''A Bronx Tale'' is a 1993 American coming-of-age crime film directed by and starring Robert De Niro in his directorial debut and produced by Jane Rosenthal, adapted from Chazz Palminteri's 1989 play of the same name. It tells the coming of ...
'' and ''
Bullets Over Broadway
''Bullets Over Broadway'' is a 1994 American black comedy crime film directed by Woody Allen, written by Allen and Douglas McGrath and starring an ensemble cast including John Cusack, Dianne Wiest, Chazz Palminteri and Jennifer Tilly.
The fil ...
.''
*
Stephen Baldwin
Stephen Andrew Baldwin (born May 12, 1966) is an American actor, producer and director. He has appeared in the films '' Born on the Fourth of July'' (1989), '' Posse'' (1993), '' 8 Seconds'' (1994), ''Threesome'' (1994), ''The Usual Suspects'' ...
as Michael McManus:
:Baldwin was tired of doing independent films where his expectations were not met; when he met with director Bryan Singer, he went into a 15-minute tirade telling him what it was like to work with him. After Baldwin was finished, Singer told him exactly what he expected and wanted, which impressed Baldwin.
*
Benicio del Toro
Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (born February 19, 1967) is a Puerto Rican actor and producer. He has garnered critical acclaim and numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, two Screen A ...
as Fred Fenster:
:Spacey suggested del Toro for the role. The character was originally written with a
Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton (July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017) was an American actor, musician, and singer.
In a career that spanned more than six decades, Stanton played supporting roles in films including '' Cool Hand Luke'' (1967), ''Kelly's Heroe ...
-type actor in mind. Del Toro met with Singer and the film's casting director and told them that he did not want to audition because he did not feel comfortable doing them.
After reading the script, del Toro realized that his character's only purpose was to be killed to demonstrate Söze's power, and did not have any meaningful impact on the story. As a result, del Toro developed Fenster's unique, garbled speech pattern to make him more memorable as a character.
*
Kevin Pollak
Kevin Elliot Pollak (born October 30, 1957) is an American actor, comedian, impressionist and podcast host. He has appeared in over 80 films; his roles include Sam Weinberg in Rob Reiner's legal film ''A Few Good Men'', Jacob Goldman in '' Grump ...
as Todd Hockney:
:He met with Singer about doing the film, but when he heard that two other actors were auditioning for the role, he came back, auditioned, and got the part.
*
Pete Postlethwaite
Peter William Postlethwaite, (7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011) was an English character actor.
After minor television appearances, including in '' The Professionals'', his first major success arose through the British autobiographical fil ...
as Kobayashi
*
Suzy Amis as Edie Finneran
*
Giancarlo Esposito
Giancarlo Giuseppe Alessandro Esposito (; born April 26, 1958) is an American actor and director. He is best known for portraying Gus Fring in the AMC crime drama series ''Breaking Bad'', from 2009 to 2011, and in its prequel series ''Better Ca ...
as FBI Agent Jack Baer
*
Dan Hedaya
Daniel G. Hedaya (born July 24, 1940) is an American actor. He established himself as a supporting actor, often playing sleazy villains or wisecracking supporting characters. He has had supporting roles in films such as '' True Confessions'' (198 ...
as Sergeant Jeff Rabin
*
Cástulo Guerra
Cástulo Guerra (born August 24, 1945) is an Argentine actor who has appeared in several American films and television shows.
He has appeared in the films ''The Usual Suspects'' (1995), ''The Mexican'' (2001) and '' The Purge: Anarchy'' (2014).
...
as Arturo Marquez
*
Peter Greene
Peter Greene (born Peter Green; October 8, 1965) is an American actor. A character actor, he is generally known for portraying villains. He is best known for the roles in the 1994 films ''The Mask'', where he plays the films antagonist, Dorian ...
as Redfoot (uncredited)
* Scott B. Morgan as
Keyser Söze
Keyser Söze ( ) is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1995 film ''The Usual Suspects'', written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. According to the main protagonist, petty con artist Roger "Verbal" Kint ( ...
(in flashbacks) (uncredited)
Production
Origins
Bryan Singer
Bryan Jay Singer (born September 17, 1965) is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed.
After graduating from the University of Southern California, Singer d ...
met
Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, obtaining supporting roles before gaining a leading man status in film and television. Spacey has received various accolades ...
at a party after a screening of the young filmmaker's first film, ''
Public Access'', at the 1993
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
, where it won the Grand Jury Prize.
Spacey had been encouraged by a number of people he knew who had seen it,
and was so impressed that he told Singer and his screenwriting partner
Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie is an American filmmaker. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film ''The Usual Suspects'' (1995).
He made his directorial debut wit ...
, that he wanted to be in whatever film they did next. Singer read a column in ''Spy'' magazine called "The Usual Suspects" after Claude Rains' line in ''
Casablanca
Casablanca, also known in Arabic as Dar al-Bayda ( ar, الدَّار الْبَيْضَاء, al-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ, ; ber, ⴹⴹⴰⵕⵍⴱⵉⴹⴰ, ḍḍaṛlbiḍa, : "White House") is the largest city in Morocco and the country's econom ...
.'' Singer thought that it would be a good title for a film.
When asked by a reporter at Sundance what their next film was about, McQuarrie replied, "I guess it's about a bunch of criminals who meet in a police line-up,"
which incidentally was the first visual idea that he and Singer had for the poster: "five guys who meet in a line-up," Singer remembers.
The director also envisioned a tagline for the poster, "All of you can go to Hell."
Singer then asked the question, "What would possibly bring these five felons together in one line-up?"
McQuarrie revamped an idea from one of his own unpublished screenplays — the story of a man who murders his own family and disappears. The writer mixed this with the idea of a team of criminals.
Söze's character is based on
John List, a
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
accountant who murdered his family in 1971 and then disappeared for almost two decades, assuming a new identity before he was ultimately apprehended.
[''The Usual Suspects'' DVD commentary featuring ]Bryan Singer
Bryan Jay Singer (born September 17, 1965) is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed.
After graduating from the University of Southern California, Singer d ...
and Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie is an American filmmaker. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film ''The Usual Suspects'' (1995).
He made his directorial debut wit ...
, 000
Triple zero, Triple Zero, Zero Zero Zero, Triple 0, Triple-0, 000, or 0-0-0 may refer to:
* 000 (emergency telephone number), the Australian emergency telephone number
* "Triple Zero", a song by AFI (band), AFI from ''Shut Your Mouth and Open Your ...
Retrieved September 27, 2002 McQuarrie based the name of Keyser Söze on one of his previous supervisors, Kayser Sume, at a Los Angeles law firm where he worked,
but decided to change the last name because he thought that his former boss would object to how it was used. He found the word ''söze'' in his roommate's English-to-
Turkish dictionary, which translates as "talk too much".
All the characters' names are taken from staff members of the law firm at the time of his employment.
McQuarrie had also worked for a detective agency, and this influenced the depiction of criminals and law enforcement officials in the script.
Singer described the film as ''
Double Indemnity
''Double Indemnity'' is a 1944 American crime film noir directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, and produced by Buddy DeSylva and Joseph Sistrom. The screenplay was based on James M. Cain's 1943 novel of the same ...
'' meets ''
Rashomon
is a 1950 Jidaigeki psychological thriller/crime film directed and written by Akira Kurosawa, working in close collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Machiko Kyō, Masayuki Mori (actor), Masayuki Mori, and ...
,'' and said that it was made "so you can go back and see all sorts of things you didn't realize were there the first time. You can get it a second time in a way you never could have the first time around."
He also compared the film's structure to ''
Citizen Kane
''Citizen Kane'' is a 1941 American drama film produced by, directed by, and starring Orson Welles. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz. The picture was Welles' first feature film. ''Citizen Kane'' is frequently cited ...
'' (which also contained an interrogator and a subject who is telling a story) and the criminal caper ''
The Anderson Tapes
''The Anderson Tapes'' is a 1971 American crime film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Sean Connery and featuring Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam and Alan King. The screenplay was written by Frank Pierson, based upon a best-selling 1970 nov ...
.''
Pre-production
McQuarrie wrote nine drafts of his screenplay over five months, until Singer felt that it was ready to shop around to the studios. None were interested except for a European financing company.
McQuarrie and Singer had a difficult time getting the film made because of the non-linear story, the large amount of dialogue and the lack of cast attached to the project. Financiers wanted established stars, and offers for the small role of Redfoot (the L.A. fence who hooks up the five protagonists with Kobayashi) went out to
Christopher Walken
Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Prolific in film, television and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Awar ...
,
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' The ...
,
Jeff Bridges
Jeffrey Leon Bridges (born December 4, 1949) is an American actor. He has received various accolades throughout his career spanning over seven decades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.
Bridges comes from a prominent a ...
,
Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estévez (born September 3, 1965), known professionally as Charlie Sheen, is an American actor. He has appeared in films such as ''Platoon'' (1986), ''Wall Street'' (1987), '' Young Guns'' (1988), '' The Rookie'' (1990), ''The Thr ...
,
James Spader
James Todd Spader (born February 7, 1960) is an American actor. He has portrayed eccentric characters in films such as the drama ''Sex, Lies, and Videotape'' (1989) for which he won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor, the action scie ...
,
Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino (; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he has received numerous accolades: including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy ...
, and
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
.
However, the European money allowed the film's producers to make offers to actors and assemble a cast. They were able to offer the actors only salaries that were well below their usual pay, but they agreed because of the quality of McQuarrie's script and the chance to work with one another.
That money fell through, and Singer used the script and the cast to attract PolyGram to pick up the film negative.
About casting, Singer said, "You pick people not for what they are, but what you imagine they can turn into."
To research his role, Spacey met doctors and experts on
cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sensa ...
and talked with Singer about how it would fit dramatically in the film. They decided that it would affect only one side of his body.
According to Byrne, the cast bonded quickly during rehearsals.
Del Toro worked with Alan Shaterian to develop Fenster's distinctive, almost unintelligible speech patterns.
According to the actor, the source of his character's unusual speech patterns came from the realization that "the purpose of my character was to die."
Del Toro told Singer, "It really doesn't matter what I say, so I can go really far out with this and really make it uncomprehensible."
Filming
The budget was set at $5.5 million, and the film was shot in 35 days
in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
,
San Pedro and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.
Spacey said that they shot the interrogation scenes with Palminteri over a span of five to six days.
These scenes were also shot before the rest of the film.
The police lineup scene ran into scheduling conflicts because the actors kept blowing their lines. Screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie would feed the actors questions off-camera and they improvised their lines. When Stephen Baldwin gave his answer, he made the other actors break character.
Byrne remembers that they were often laughing between takes and "when they said, 'Action!', we'd barely be able to keep it together."
Spacey also said that the hardest part was not laughing through takes, with Baldwin and Pollak being the worst culprits.
Their goal was to get the usually serious Byrne to crack up.
They spent all morning trying unsuccessfully to film the scene. At lunch, a frustrated Singer angrily scolded the five actors, but, when they resumed, the cast continued to laugh through each take.
Byrne remembers, "Finally, Bryan just used one of the takes where we couldn't stay serious."
Singer and editor John Ottman used a combination of takes and kept the humor in to show the characters bonding with one another.
While Del Toro told Singer how he was going to portray Fenster, he did not tell his cast members, and in their first scene together none of them understood what Del Toro was saying. Byrne confronted Singer and the director told him that for the lockup scene, "If you don't understand what he's saying maybe it's time we let the audience know that they don't need to know what he's saying."
This led to the inclusion of Kevin Pollak's improvised line, "What did you say?"
The stolen emeralds were real
gemstone
A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, ...
s on loan for the film.
Singer spent an 18-hour day shooting the underground parking garage robbery.
According to Byrne, by the next day Singer still did not have all of the footage that he wanted, and refused to stop filming in spite of the bonding company's threat to shut down the production.
In the scene in which the crew meets Redfoot after the botched drug deal, Redfoot flicks his cigarette at McManus' face. The scene was originally to have Redfoot flick the cigarette at McManus's chest, but the actor missed and hit Baldwin's face by accident. Baldwin's reaction is genuine.
Despite enclosed practical locations and a short shooting schedule, cinematographer
Newton Thomas Sigel
Newton Thomas Sigel, (born August 1955; sometimes credited as Tom Sigel) is an American cinematographer best known for his collaborations with director Bryan Singer on films like ''The Usual Suspects, Valkyrie,'' and the ''X-Men'' film franchi ...
"developed a way of shooting dialogue scenes with a combination of slow, creeping zooms and dolly moves that ended in tight close-ups," to add subtle energy to scenes.
"This style combined dolly movement with "imperceptible zooms" so that you'd always have a sense of motion in a limited space."
In December 2017, amid several sexual misconduct allegations against Spacey, Byrne said that, at one point during shooting, production was shut down for two days because Spacey made unwanted sexual advances toward a younger actor. Singer, who has himself been accused of sexual misconduct against minors, has denied that Spacey behaved inappropriately on the set of the film, however.
Post-production
During the editing phase, Singer thought that they had completed the film two weeks early, but woke up one morning and realized that they needed that time to put together a sequence that convinced the audience that Dean Keaton was Söze — and then do the same for Verbal Kint because the film did not have "the punch that Chris had written so beautifully."
According to Ottman, he assembled the footage as a montage but it still did not work until he added an overlapping voice-over
montage
Montage may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Filmmaking and films
* Montage (filmmaking), a technique in film editing
* ''Montage'' (2013 film), a South Korean film
Music
* Montage (music), or sound collage
* ''Montage'' (Block B EP), 201 ...
featuring key dialogue from several characters and had it relate to the images.
Early on, executives at
Gramercy had problems pronouncing the name Keyser Söze and were worried that audiences would have the same problem. The studio decided to promote the character's name. Two weeks before the film debuted in theaters, "Who is Keyser Söze?" posters appeared at bus stops, and TV spots told people how to say the character's name.
Despite these efforts, all the actors in the film consistently mispronounce his name as "Soze" instead of "Söze".
Singer wanted the music for the boat heist to resemble
Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
's
Piano Concerto No. 1. The ending's music was based on a
k.d. lang
Kathryn Dawn Lang (born November 2, 1961), known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Lang has won Juno Awards and Grammy Awards for her musical performances. Hits include the s ...
song.
Release
Gramercy ran a
pre-release promotion and
advertising campaign
An advertising campaign is a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme which make up an integrated marketing communication (IMC). An IMC is a platform in which a group of people can group their ideas, beliefs, and conc ...
before ''The Usual Suspects'' opened in the summer of 1995.
Word of mouth
Word of mouth, or ''viva voce'', is the passing of information from person to person using oral communication, which could be as simple as telling someone the time of day. Storytelling is a common form of word-of-mouth communication where one pe ...
marketing was used to advertise the film, and buses and billboards were plastered with the simple question, "Who is Keyser Söze?"
The film was shown out of competition at the
1995 Cannes Film Festival and was well received by audiences and critics. The film was then given an exclusive run in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, where it took a combined $83,513, and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where it made $132,294 on three screens in its opening weekend. The film was then released in 42 theaters where it earned $645,363 on its opening weekend. It averaged a strong $4,181 per screen at 517 theaters and the following week added 300 locations.
It eventually made $23.3 million in the United States and Canada.
It grossed $43.6 million internationally for a worldwide total of $66.9 million.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has received a rating of 89%, based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.90/10. The site's consensus reads, "Expertly shot and edited, ''The Usual Suspects'' gives the audience a simple plot and then piles on layers of deceit, twists, and violence before pulling out the rug from underneath." On Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, the film has a score of 77 out of 100, based on 22 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...
, in a review for the ''Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...
,'' gave the film one and a half stars out of four, writing that it was confusing and uninteresting: "To the degree that I do understand, I don't care." He also included the film in his "most hated films" list. ''USA Today
''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...
'' rated the film two and a half stars out of four, calling it "one of the most densely plotted mysteries in memory—though paradoxically, four-fifths of it is way too easy to predict." ''Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' praised Spacey, saying his "balls-out brilliant performance is Oscar bait
Oscar bait is a term used in the film community for movies that appear to have been produced for the sole purpose of earning nominations for Academy Awards or "Oscars", as they are commonly known. They are usually released just in advance of Oscar ...
all the way." In his review for ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'', Hal Hinson wrote, "Ultimately, ''The Usual Suspects'' may be too clever for its own good. The twist at the end is a corker, but crucial questions remain unanswered. What's interesting, though, is how little this intrudes on our enjoyment. After the movie you're still trying to connect the dots and make it all fit—and these days, how often can we say that?"
In her review for ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', Janet Maslin
Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...
praised the performances of the cast: "Mr. Singer has assembled a fine ensemble cast of actors who can parry such lines, and whose performances mesh effortlessly despite their exaggerated differences in demeanor ... Without the violence or obvious bravado of ''Reservoir Dogs
''Reservoir Dogs'' is a 1992 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature-length debut. It stars Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Michael Madsen, Tarantino, and Edward Bunke ...
,'' these performers still create strong and fascinatingly ambiguous characters." ''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
'' praised the film's ending: "The film's coup de grace is as elegant as it is unexpected. The whole movie plays back in your mind in perfect clarity—and turns out to be a completely different movie to the one you've been watching (rather better, in fact)."
Accolades
At the 68th Academy Awards
The 68th Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1995 in the United States and took place on March 25, 1996, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles begi ...
, Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, obtaining supporting roles before gaining a leading man status in film and television. Spacey has received various accolades ...
won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role while worki ...
and Christopher McQuarrie
Christopher McQuarrie is an American filmmaker. He received the BAFTA Award, Independent Spirit Award, and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the neo-noir mystery film ''The Usual Suspects'' (1995).
He made his directorial debut wit ...
won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay
The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Awards, Academy Award for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material. It was created in 1940 as a separate writing award from the Academy Award for Best Story. Be ...
. In his acceptance speech, Spacey said, "Well, whoever Keyser Söze is, I can tell you he's gonna get gloriously drunk tonight."
Legacy
On June 17, 2008, the American Film Institute
The American Film Institute (AFI) is an American nonprofit film organization that educates filmmakers and honors the heritage of the motion picture arts in the United States. AFI is supported by private funding and public membership fees.
Leade ...
revealed its " AFI's 10 Top 10"—the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres—after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. ''The Usual Suspects'' was acknowledged as the tenth-best mystery film. Verbal Kint was voted the #48 villain in " AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains" in June 2003.
''Entertainment Weekly
''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...
'' cited the film as one of the "13 must-see heist movies". ''Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' ranked Keyser Söze #69 in their "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters" poll. In August 2016, James Charisma of '' Paste'' ranked ''The Usual Suspects'' among Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, obtaining supporting roles before gaining a leading man status in film and television. Spacey has received various accolades ...
's greatest film performances.
In 2013, the Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers:
* The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO
* The Writers Guil ...
ranked the screenplay #35 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written.
Remake
In India, a critically panned Hindi-language
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been des ...
adaptation of ''The Usual Suspects'', titled ''Chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
'', was released in 2005.
See also
*Heist film
The heist film or caper film is a subgenre of crime film focused on the planning, execution, and aftermath of a significant robbery.
One of the early defining heist films was ''The Asphalt Jungle'' (1950), which ''Film Genre 2000'' wrote "almo ...
References
External links
*
*
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Usual Suspects, The
1990s American films
1995 drama films
1990s English-language films
1990s German films
1990s heist films
1990s mystery films
1995 crime thriller films
1995 films
American crime thriller films
American heist films
American mystery films
American neo-noir films
American nonlinear narrative films
Anthony Award-winning works
Bad Hat Harry Productions films
BAFTA winners (films)
Edgar Award-winning works
Fiction about familicide
Fiction with unreliable narrators
Filicide in fiction
Films about con artists
Films directed by Bryan Singer
Films featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award-winning performance
Films produced by Bryan Singer
Films scored by John Ottman
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in New York City
Films shot in California
Films shot in New York City
Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award
Films whose writer won the Best Original Screenplay BAFTA Award
Films with screenplays by Christopher McQuarrie
German nonlinear narrative films
Gramercy Pictures films
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment films
Spelling Films films