The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects (known as The Usual Suspects or Common Suspects in Latin America and The Usual Suspects in Spain) is a 1995 American film written by Christopher McQuarrie (who won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for this work) and directed by Bryan Singer. It starred Kevin Spacey (Oscar for Best Supporting Actor), Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio del Toro and Kevin Pollak.

The $4 million film was not very well received in theaters upon its release, making it onto the list of "Roger Ebert's Most Hated Movies," but it appealed to many. followers of the crime/drama genre and is considered a cult film. Ten years after its release, it remains in the Internet Movie Database's Top 25 "Top 250 Movie List". It is part of AFI's 10 Top 10 in the "Mystery Movies" category.

Plot

Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey) is a crippled petty con man who finds himself in an LAPD interrogation and tells his interrogator, Officer Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), a story about the events that they unleashed a shooting and a massacre inside a ship stationed in the port of Los Angeles. Using flashback narration, Verbal's story becomes more and more complex as he attempts to "clarify" the facts, much to the satisfaction of Agent Kujan, who is interested in why he and his partners in crime were there. ship.

On a boat in San Pedro Bay, a faceless figure identified as "Keyser" speaks briefly with a wounded man named Keaton (Byrne), then Keyser appears to shoot Keaton, before setting the boat on fire. The next day, FBI agent Jack Baer (Giancarlo Esposito) and Customs Special Agent David Kujan (Palminteri) arrive in San Pedro separately to investigate what happened on the ship. In that, federal agent Josh Hillman arrives, along with Commissioner Peter Turner of the U.S. Marshals, because one of them is a fugitive. It seems there are only two survivors: Roger "Verbal" Kint (Spacey), a con man with mild paralysis, and a criminal named Arkosh Kovash (Morgan Hunter). Baer questions Kovash, who is treating his severe burns at the hospital. He claims that Keyser Söze, a Turkish criminal mastermind with an almost mythical reputation, was in port to "kill many men." Kovash begins to describe Söze through an interpreter, while a police cartoonist makes a rendering of Söze's face. Meanwhile, Verbal has testified in detail about the incident in exchange for near total immunity. Waiting to post bail on the misdemeanor weapons charge, Verbal is placed in the crowded office of San Pedro Police Sergeant Jeffrey Rabin (Dan Hedaya) where Kujan demands to hear the story from him from the beginning. Verbal begins six weeks earlier in New York:

Five criminals unite in a police line: Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a corrupt police officer who has seemingly given up his life of crime; Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), a hot-tempered professional thief; Fred Fenster (Benicio del Toro), Verbal Kint and Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak).

While the five are in custody, McManus convinces the others to join forces to commit a robbery targeting "the best cab service in New York," a group of crooked police officers who escort smugglers to their destinations in the city. After the successful robbery, the quintet travels to Los Angeles to sell their loot to an acquaintance of McManus, Redfoot (Peter Greene), who offers them another job: robbing a jewelry dealer. Instead of carrying jewelry or money, as they were told, he was carrying heroin. A furious confrontation between the thieves and Redfoot reveals that the work came from a lawyer named Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite). The robbers later meet with Kobayashi, who claims that he works for Keyser Soze and blackmails them into attacking a ship in San Pedro harbor. Kobayashi describes the mission of a ship to smuggle $91 million worth of cocaine, to be sold by rivals of Söze. The thieves must destroy the drug, and if they decide to wait until the buyers arrive, they can split the money however they like.

In the present day, Verbal tells Kujan the story of Keyser Söze: after his Hungarian rivals invade his home, they are surprised that he kills his own wife and children, and then slaughters the entire mob except for one. After that incident Söze went underground, never dealing directly with anyone in person, saying it became "a scary tale that criminals tell their children at night." Kujan is not familiar with Söze, Verbal says that he has heard rumors for years about criminals working for Söze, but they don't really know who they work for. Verbal also says that Fenster tried to run away, resulting in a death sentence for Kobayashi. The remaining four thieves kidnap Kobayashi, intending to kill him if he doesn't leave them alone. Threatened, Kobayashi reveals that Edie Finneran (Suzy Amis), Keaton's lawyer and girlfriend, is in his office (believing she was hired for legal services), and threatens to kill her, as well as the families of the four thieves, if they do. to refuse to do the job.

On the night of the cocaine sale, the sellers (a group of Argentine mobsters) and the buyers (a group of Hungarian mobsters) meet at the pier. Keaton tells Verbal not to go and to take the money if the plan goes awry so that he along with Edie (his girlfriend of his) can go after Kobayashi on "his way from him". Verbal reluctantly agrees, and watches the ship from a distance. Keaton, McManus, and Hockney attack the men on the dock, killing most of them. Keaton and McManus are on board the ship to find the drugs while Hockney goes after the van carrying the money, but he is fatally shot by someone unseen when he finds it. Keaton and McManus discover that there is no cocaine on the ship. Meanwhile, a well-protected Argentine passenger is killed by the invisible assailant while he is being searched for. McManus is killed with a knife to the back of his neck and Keaton, turning to leave, is shot by a man wearing a black suit and hat. The mysterious figure appears to speak briefly with Keaton before shooting him again.

As Verbal finishes the story, Kujan reveals what he knows: the body of the Argentine man was found that morning on the coast, and he reveals the man, Arturo Márquez (Castulo Guerra), who in order to escape from the prison, had revealed to the authorities that he could identify Keyser Söze. He assumes that the Hungarian group is the same group that Söze nearly wiped out in Turkey and offers to buy Márquez from the Argentine group for $91 million. Fabricating a deal, Kujan speculates, Söze hired Verbal and his crew to go rob the docks, when in reality it was a cover for Söze to personally enter the ship and kill Márquez without being detected. Kujan through his analysis concludes that Keaton was really Keyser Söze. He is convinced that Keaton has faked his death (as he had done a few years before escaping another investigation), and deliberately left Verbal as a witness. Under aggressive questioning from Kujan, Verbal tearfully admits that the whole thing was Keaton's idea all along, but refuses to testify.

Verbal is out on bail after being arrested, Verbal gets his personal things back from the property official. Moments later, Kujan, relaxing in Rabin's office, notices with surprise that details and names from Verbal's story are gleaned from various objects around the room, including Rabin's crowded bulletin board. and the logo of the "Kobayashi Porcelain Company" at the bottom of the coffee cup. Kujan realizes that most of Verbal's story was cobbled together for his benefit and goes after him, running past a fax machine, which receives a printout of the police drawing of Keyser Söze's face, which is resembles none other than Verbal Kint.

Meanwhile, Verbal walks away from the police station, giving up faking his cerebral palsy. He gets into a waiting car driven by "Kobayashi", driving away as Kujan steps outside, searching in vain. Verbal quotes Charles Baudelaire: "The devil's greatest trick was to convince the world that he did not exist." This is followed by Keyser Söze's description above: "And just like that, he is gone".

Cast and dubbing in Spain

Awards and nominations