The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995) was written by Christopher McQuarrie and shot on a low budget $6 million (estimated) for such a successful film grossing over $51 million worldwide.

Authors Avatar

The Usual Suspects

Edward le Huquet

The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995) was written by Christopher McQuarrie and shot on a low budget $6 million (estimated) for such a successful film grossing over $51 million worldwide.  

      The storyline is a crime mystery thriller the genre has a set of conventions, they create a high level of anticipation, uncertainty, mystery and nerve-wracking tension. They also help the audience understand the film more easily and know what to expect from it.  It also helps make sure that the audience will enjoy the violence, suspense and mystery the film contains having seen similar films in the past.  The manipulation of the audience through plot twists and misinformation creates confusion and even more suspense.  

      The Usual Suspects was aimed at a mature audience of both genders but aimed mostly towards men due to the high amount of violence in it.  The mostly unknown cast (at the time) was headed by Gabriel Byrne, Chaz Pullminterri and Kevin Spacey.  The unusual cast helps to add to the air of mystery of the film.  

      Verbal (Spacey) a crippled conman mostly tells the story in flashbacks and third person narration as Kujan (Pullminterri) interrogates him.  Verbal the antihero being pulled through a series of events that seem beyond his control.  Kujan the hard-nosed detective, trying to get to the bottom of the events.  Both are very typical characters to the conventions of the genre and help the audience to understand what is going on in the film and what to expect from it.  The other main character is Keaton (Bryne) an ex-corrupt cop trying to go straight drawn between the new life he is trying to make for himself and his past life of crime, another standard character to the conventions of the genre.  

Join now!

        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 ...

This is a preview of the whole essay