The story is of a group of five criminals (Verbal, Keaton, Hockney, Fenster and McManus), who are taken into custody by the New York Police for questioning about the hijacking of a van carrying gun parts. After being questioned separately they meet up in the cells and discuss doing a job that McManus had heard about. They do this job and another and afterwards are approached by Kobayashi and told that they must complete a job for his boss Keyser Soze (a Hungarian gangster with legendary status is the underworld), the standard shadowy figure often used in the genre. The group is reluctant to do the job an almost suicidal mission to steal dope worth $91 million from a heavily guarded ship. Fenster is found dead after deciding to leave rather than do the job. The group decides to kill Kobayashi instead of doing the job he told them about. However Kobayashi threatens Edie so they find they have no choice but to succumb to his will. The job goes badly and everyone is killed by a mysterious assailant killed except Verbal.
The sequence starts just as Verbal finishes giving his testimony, Kujan starts confronting him with his ideas concerning Keaton. Verbal is told by Kujan that the Hungarians weren’t actually buying dope and that they were in fact paying for the one person who knew the identity of Keyser Soze. True to the genre the facts start to trickle through towards the end, and the audience starts to see what the truth. We then find out that from their meeting in the line up at the beginning of the film through their dealings with Redfoot and finally their attack on the boat they were being manipulated by Keyser Soze. The idea of an unsuspecting hero or in this case anti-hero, being pulled into events beyond their control is also typical of the genre.
The interrogation is also heightened Kujan circling Verbal, starting to talk more loudly shouting questions and ideas towards him. Verbal becomes more and more confused and agitated, which has the effect of making the audience empathise even more with Verbal.
Then Kujan says Keaton is Keyser Soze and with that starts listing reasons why he believes this to be true, with every reason Verbal replies no. This yet again has the effect of heightening the tension and builds us towards the anti-climax of the film. We find out Edie is dead killed by two bullets through the head Keyser’s trademark way of killing. Still reinforcing the point and our feelings about Keyser, that he uses anyone and everyone. The audience now starts to believe Keaton is Keyser Soze, the shadowy semi-mythical figure often used in this genre. Kujan tells Verbal that Keaton had to get on that boat so he could make sure that the one man who could identify him as Keyser Soze was killed.
Verbal starts to lose confidence in what he thinks he knows about Keaton and the events that he has been through. Keaton is now seen as Keyser Soze, the evil abstract shadowy force, the cause of all the menacing and often dangerous situations our anti-hero Verbal has been put through from the beginning of the film. The tension reaches a crescendo as the audience is told Verbal didn’t actually see the killing of Keaton and he breaks down and cries. The audience now feels sorry for the weak, easily manipulated cripple that Keaton has played like a puppet all the way through the story. Used like all the other people so that Keaton could perform a hit that he couldn’t pull off alone used because he was stupid because he was a cripple. This is typical of the genre leading us up to a crescendo, not letting us know the answers we have waited for right up until the end of the film. Even now the audience is not let believe whether or not Keyser Soze is real or just a spook story, reinforcing his almost mythical nature.
Even now Verbal decides not tot turn states evidence, even though the man he is protecting may well kill him, he leaves the room which makes us empathise even more. The tension is gone from the film we think we know the answers but another device often used in this genre is about to be played. As Verbal leaves the police station we see Kujan talking in the office and as he looks up at the bulletin board that we saw Verbal looking at before his interrogation he sees something; quartet is written in the corner, Verbal had said he had been in a barbershop quartet. He drops his coffee cup the tension is building again. Then he sees something else; underneath quartet is written Skokie IL, the place Verbal had said he had been in the quartet. The camera moves across the board Redfoot, the name of the fence is written on it, the camera stops on the word Guatemala, another place Verbal had said he had been. The tension is building up even more the audience now know that Verbal has been telling a pack of lies to Kujan, as on the bottom of the coffee cup Kujan broke we see the name Kobayashi.
The anticlimax is complete as Kujan runs out of the office in persuit of Verbal and we see a fax of Keyser Soze coming through the fax machine with the face of Verbal. We then see the crippled Verbal now start to walk normally and have no trouble lighting a cigarette as he gets into a car with the person earlier depicted as Kobayashi, Keyser’s Lawyer, just as Kujan gets out to the street cursing at his stupidity. This use of an anticlimax is also typical of the genre and was used very well. Since as Verbal had been lying all the way through his interrogation, we are left unsure as to whether he is Keyser and whether any of the story is actually true ending the story with still unanswered questions which is also a technique often used by films of this type.
The Usual Suspects is typical of the genre and uses conventions that the audience expect, the disjointed and complex storyline (typical of films of the time like Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs) help build up the suspense and mystery the audience wants. Although it would be difficult to apply a cause-and-effect model to the film (due to the unreliability of Verbals testimony), it by and large conforms to it. The initial meeting leading to the jobs the group go on and then the anticlimactic resolution that Verbal is probably Keyser Soze. From the way Kujan finds out just to late to do anything about what he knows to the clichéd characters and the lack of answers until right at the end of the film the conventions are what the audience expects from a film of this genre and all add to the enjoyment and they also reinforce our recognition of the genre. They also help us understand that things will not always be as they seem and we wont know the story proper until the very end.
1,485 words.