Good old Ponty sent along this awesome review before I headed out on my honeymoon, which saves me the creative effort of crafting a thoughtful review of some crappy movie after being unplugged for the past week.

Instead, you get this great review of an awesome movie.  Anytime Italo Calvino is referenced in a movie review, you know it’s going to be good.

I’m sure I’ve seen The Usual Suspects—or I thought I was sure until I read Ponty’s review.  Now… I’m not so sure.  Based on his review, I’ll have to head his advice to see it posthaste.  Perhaps Dr. Wife and I can enjoy it over Christmas.  I’m still planning on showing her Gremlins (1984).

Just a note—several of the links in this review are Amazon Affiliate links.  I receive a portion of any purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you.  I’ve marked these links with an asterisk (*).

With that, here is Ponty’s review of 1995’s The Usual Suspects:

We’re going back a long time, okay, maybe twenty odd years, when a young man was sitting in a class at college looking at the question of the narrator in the novel. This would have been an interesting character study at university but times were different in the early noughties and backwards. Students had a bit more about them and teachers knew that so could delve into topics which now would be too in depth for college. It was fun, it was interesting and it gave us the opportunity to dissect characters and story in a way that made the book evolve rather than crumble.

The book in question was The Great Gatsby* and the question was about the accuracy of the testimony from the book’s narrator, Nick Carraway, who was a little too close to the protagonists for comfort. Examining Nick’s character, ambition, motives, allowed for other stories, other narratives to evolve and that’s one of the many things I love about The Usual Suspects* (1995); you don’t quite know where truth ends and fiction starts but heck, it’s a good enough mystery to unravel.

I’m not going to add spoilers to this review on the unlikely chance that one or two of you haven’t seen it. You need to though. I found, with some amazement, by looking through My Documents this morning, no Word file for this film, thinking that I’d added it to my Top 10 Best Films of All Time list. How was this film not there? It is perfect in every way. It’s as much a mystery to me as this movie is.

Has anyone here read The Castle of Crossed Destinies* (1973) by Italo Calvino? It’s a story where everything happens and nothing happens, where you can simultaneously invest in and question the characters and story. That’s pretty much the premise of this film though with more precision.

The Usual Suspects takes us on a journey with 5 criminals, from their initial arrest to their potentially fatal last job, the story narrated by one of these criminals, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). The movie begins in the aftermath of the last job and Verbal recounts, to the authorities, the events that led up to that moment; meeting the other 4 in a police line up, coming together, planning and carrying out jobs, and the circumstances that led to the very thing that got the authorities involved; the bloodbath at the harbour.

The director, Bryan Singer, has done many films but he will never, in his life, do anything as good as this movie. It’s perfectly casted, perfectly acted, has a great story you can immerse yourself in but you can easily take yourself out of to look at the broader picture. You know that certain events took place, you know that specific characters exist but we only have the word of one man for the rest and when you get to that superb ending, you find yourself questioning everything that has come before it. It’s an intriguing parallel to the way the film runs – you get the ending at the start, the journey to that beginning and a rewind to everything you thought you knew about what had actually occurred. It’s a great way to look at fiction.

Singer’s direction is beautiful and coupled with an exquisite post noir soundtrack, the film runs swimmingly, chaotic in parts, steady and thoughtful in others. I love the lighting and the juxtaposition, my favourite moment being the one where a cave becomes the coffee seen in a cup from above.

Each of the criminals have their own idiosyncracies which work in harmony, or as near as you can get, together and with some, you’re never in doubt about who they are though some contain mysteries that ensure you can never quite pin them down. Fenster (Benicio Del Toro) and Hockney (Kevin Pollak) add humour to the group while McManus (Stephen Baldwin) is more measured but it’s the quiet, calculating nature of Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), former cop turned criminal, who provides us with more questions and Kint, an outsider, gives the audience a glimpse into who these people are and how they operate.

And then there is the mystery of Keyser Soze, a figure of fear and fascination, who leads this group to their decisive end. But we never see him, only hear about his exploits. Or do we?

That, dear reader, you will have to find out for yourself. This superb crime thriller, cut from the mould of some of the very best film noirs, is not to be missed. And if you have seen it, watch it again to remind yourself of a true celluloid classic.