Barnes & Noble

Few movie thrillers grip their audiences in the way this gritty but seductive caper flick does. Christopher McQuarrie's brilliantly structured, Academy Award-winning screenplay opens with a mysterious dock fire, the unexpected result of a botched hijacking that leaves the crime scene littered with corpses. Flashbacks reveal the participants as career criminals Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, Benicio Del Toro, and the conflagration's sole survivor, Kevin Spacey. Interrogated by police officer Chazz Palminteri, Spacey spins a bizarre tale of treachery and murder, over which hovers the specter of a mysterious master criminal named Keyser Soze. Bryan Singer's direction consists mainly of misdirection: Like a magician, he diverts attention from clues that might enable viewers to peer through veils of deception shrouding the truth. He's ably assisted by the powerhouse cast, the standout of which is clearly Spacey. His Oscar-winning portrayal of crippled stoolie, Roger "Verbal" Kint, catapulted the character actor to stardom. Distinguished by its deliciously clever script, razor-sharp direction, and superb, nuanced performances, The Usual Suspects is a modern classic. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Near the end of The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, in his Oscar-winning performance as crippled con man Roger "Verbal" Kint, says, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." This may be the key line in this story; the farther along the movie goes, the more one realizes that not everything is quite what it seems, and what began as a conventional whodunit turns into something quite different. A massive explosion rips through a ship in a San Pedro, CA, harbor, leaving 27 men dead, the lone survivor horribly burned, and 91 million dollars' worth of cocaine, believed to be on board, mysteriously missing. Police detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) soon brings in the only witness and key suspect, "Verbal" Kint. Kint's nickname stems from his inability to keep his mouth shut, and he recounts the events that led to the disaster. Five days earlier, a truckload of gun parts was hijacked in Queens, NY, and five men were brought in as suspects: Kint, hot-headed hipster thief McManus (Stephen Baldwin), ill-tempered thug Hockney (Kevin Pollak), flashy wise guy Fenster (Benicio del Toro), and Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a cop gone bad now trying to go straight in the restaurant business. While in stir, someone suggests that they should pull a job together, and Kint hatches a plan for a simple and lucrative jewel heist. Despite Keaton's misgivings, the five men pull off the robbery without a hitch and fly to Los Angeles to fence the loot. Their customer asks if they'd be interested in pulling a quick job while out West; the men agree, but the robbery goes horribly wrong and they soon find themselves visited by Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), who represents a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze. Soze's violent reputation is so infamous that he's said to have responded to a threat to murder his family by killing them himself, just to prove that he feared no one. When Kobayashi passes along a heist proposed by Soze that sounds like suicide, the men feel that they have little choice but to agree. Mark Deming

Rolling Stone

The Usual Suspects is the freshest, funniest and scariest crime thriller to come along since Pulp Fiction. Peter Travers

Los Angeles Times

But like a tale from the Arabian Nights, told for the sheer pleasure of storytelling, this elegant puzzle not only enjoys showing off, it also has something to show. Kenneth Turan

Product Details

• UPC: 027616063335
• Source: MGM (VIDEO & DVD)
• Region Code: A
• Aspect Ratio: Cinemascope (2.35:1)
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound, Dolby Surround
• Language: English, Français, Español
• Subtitles: English, Español
• Time: 1:46:00
• Sales Rank: 10,027

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Anti-Social Studies 101

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