The Usual Suspects

Not an ideal movie to watch for the first time 25 years later because popular culture has ruined the twist ending multiple times. But truthfully, the same gripe could be leveled at The Empire Strikes Back.

Regardless of whether or not I knew the twist ahead of time, I like the twist because it doesn't answer everything. It's ambiguous, and makes Verbal an unreliable narrator, and makes you question everything you've seen. Did most of it go down the way he said just with the names changed? Is he Keyser Soze, or simply the guy who created the idea of Keyser Soze? The twist ending landed not in a revelatory fashion but sort of a frustrating one. Which is kind of cool because people can debate their theories of the movie later on.

Regardless, another reason I wish I had seen it at the time is that I now know what creeps both Bryan Singer and Kevin Spacey are, and Spacey's predations especially weigh heavily on me as I watch the film. Singer's visage isn't constantly present as director, so I sometimes forget he's involved, but Spacey is front and center, and I can't help but feeling a certain level of revulsion for him. Let me also say I don't believe he deserved an Oscar for his role either. It's the screenplay doing the heavy lifting there, and I think he got the Oscar because people liked both the movie and his character. Not because he delivered the best supporting male performance of the year. That's a lot of what Oscars boil down to: Politics, not quality.

I liked it fine though, but I think I probably would have liked it more 25 years ago. Not simply because of the real-life troubles of the people who made it, but because I feel like this specific kind of movie was unusual (groan!) at the time, and now a LOT of movies and TV shows are like this. It would have landed better because is would have been unique. It's still good, but compared to the stuff made today, it's become standard. Yes, it probably had a large part to do with creating that standard, but I can't pretend the movie has the same impact on me as a new viewer now than it would have back then. ****.