The Usual Suspects

Starting off the New Year with a bang. The Usual Suspects was my first choice to get stuck into. Or rather, it was my Grandpa's choice and he fell asleep about 20 minutes in. Don't let the lethargy of an 86 year old man decieve you, however, I massively enjoyed Bryan Singer's neo-noir crime thriller.

The dingily lit story begins in the aftermath of a disastrous heist. The events that lead us to this moment are narrated by Roger 'Verbal' Kint (played by Kevin Spacey), one of two survivors of the massacre. The story centres around a ragtag group of crooks who are thrown in jail together for a crime they did not commit and their resulting string of criminal escapades. The cast is universally excellent, with highlights including Benicio Del Toro, who plays the suave Fred Fenster with a fantastically incomprehensible accent that renders him unreadable (playing into the film's themes of misdirection and false narratives). Other MVPs include Gabriel Byrne, who nailed the steely, reluctant participant with a haunting past, and Chazz Palminteri shone as the ambitious, unrelenting cop. The gritty, drab cinematography leans hard into the ne-noir, constantly disarming and misleading us both in the shadows of its aesthetic and its narrative. Alongside a constant, simmering threat of violence, an atmosphere already thick with anxiety is heightened further by the strength of the ensemble. From the moment of the infamous line-up scene, The Usual Suspects has you firmly onside, falling in with the lies the characters so easily tell.

Like many, I thought I had The Usual Suspects sussed out relatively early on, but I was fooled. After witnessing what I can now appreciate as a truly inspired twist, I am disappointed: a true film snob would have figured that one out. After Se7en, how could I ever doubt Spacey's credentials to play a great big baddie? But I did doubt it. And now it seems I have a long way to go until I achieve this illustrious title.

8/10

Yours sincerely,

The (wannabe) Film Buff