The Usual Suspects (1995, Bryan Singer)

Twist endings have, in general, never appealed to me. It always seems like the cheap way to get out of having to figure out a way to wrap up loose questions. We move along through the film, thinking "How the hell will this all come together? Oh, but the plot ends are so disparate! I can only hope that the writer has come up with a clever and unique way for it to all make sense."

So what can I say about a movie that's famous for a twist ending that I could see coming? Indeed, one reason I never saw this film until now is that everybody raves about the ending without ever mentioning any other sort of merit to the film - there didn't seem to be anything else there. Sadly, that's all there is here.

Bryan Singer, a fellow who would go on to direct such films as X-Men, X2, and Superman Returns, displays all the talent of a talented TV director. I would feel as satisfied listening to an audiotape of the movie as I was watching it. There's a distinct lack of any sort of visual flare, and perhaps that's the way it should be. The sentiment stands. The acting, from Kevin Spacey to that Baldwin brother, is average to good, and here, allow me to digress.

***SPOILERS FROM HERE ON***

Perhaps my largest problem with the film is that it trusts the audience to be stupid - to see things in extremes and to not possibly see the truth. Spacey's portrayal of Kint is so reserved, inwards, and meek that we couldn't possibly think - or so Singer hopes - that he could be Söze. Here, it could be the film's reputation for a twist that works against it. In knowing that there will be a huge revelation, it's only natural to begin to look for what the twist could be. What could be a better twist than having the reserved, inwards, and meek character suddenly become a violent psychopath? Well, you couldn't have a better twist. It may seem that I'm judging the film too harshly - after all, I was looking for a twist, and that's a bit unfair, isn't it? Well, I don't think so. Consider this: suppose I didn't see the twist coming, and I was floored by the shock of it all. It remains to be true that there's a distinct lack of craft present here. A twist wouldn't save it from that, and my thoughts would only slightly be better. The first 95 minutes are uninteresting with little to no thematic development, and it doesn't pick up until the execution of the twist, which, I must admit, was unexpectedly well done - one pro in a list of cons.

****