If you’ve had a chance to see The Usual Suspects DVD, you undoubtedly flung something across the room when the writer and director started explaining what actually transpired at the film’s conclusion. The reason for this is that the music fades away and the filmmakers sidestep the query! As a result, it is up to us to figure out how Keyser Söze pulled off the biggest con the devil has ever executed. Worry no more, spoilers follow as we break down The Usual Suspects’ storyline and conclusion.
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Keyser Söze, who is he?
That’s the query The Usual Suspects poses, and the movie’s creators immediately give the audience a hint as to who he is. The rest of the movie is a search for the solution that constantly leads spectators and a helpless detective astray. The solution to this question at the end of the movie leaves many spectators perplexed, which is only to be expected.
Let’s try to halt that spinning now.
A Tale Within a Tale
On the surface, the FuboTV streaming movie The Usual Suspects appears to be two storylines in one.
The questioning of Verbal Kint, a witness, a suspected criminal, and the lone survivor of a terribly mishandled heist involving a mysterious drug lord. The story’s present day is where this action occurs.
As the kingpin’s employees, Verbal and his accomplices were killed as a result of the crime. As Verbal tells the story in the present, this crime is flashed back to as the context for the interrogation.
Going back and forth between these two stories appears to be an effort at clarification, but what really comes through is a basic sublayer of deceit. Instead of the intercut style used in the movie, reviewing these two storylines in chronological order may make those different parts easier to identify.
The Schedule
The heist’s victims are brought together in a police lineup after being identified as “the typical suspects” in a truck hijacking that both the police and the public were aware they had nothing to do with.
As follows:
Disgraced former police officer and the supposed capo of this gang of misfits, Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne)
Their entry man was Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), and McManus’s ride-or-die was Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro).
Their demolitions expert Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollack) Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) a deplorable “cripple” and suspected scam man
They resolve to work together to take revenge on the dishonest police after their predicted release. They succeed in pulling off a theft that makes the department look bad.
When that is successful, a lawyer by the name of Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite) contacts Keaton on behalf of his client, a masked guy by the name of Keyser Söze, to ask his team to pull off another, more significant robbery. Each member of Keaton’s crew is aware that they are on Söze’s bad side for a different reason, which encourages them to accept the position.
The heist Kobayashi requested turns out to be a disaster, blowing up the boat and 24 people, including all but one of the heist crew, who is the only living witness to the incident. Jump to the beginning of the movie (since we’re providing the summary in chronological order rather than how it appears in the film).
The Questioning
In the story’s present, federal Customs Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) uses the office of a LA County Sergeant to question Verbal Kint. According to Kujan’s hypothesis, Keyser Söze is indeed Keaton.
The Offense
Let’s start with the fact that no one in law enforcement thought Keyser Söze ever existed. The fact that no one had ever seen him and hence had no idea of his appearance contributed to the top gangster’s mystery, uniqueness, and — if he were real — power and terror. As a result, no one could place him. However, he was blamed for many violent killings and for controlling the LA drug trade.
Through his representative Kobayashi, Keyser Söze ostensibly recruited Keaton and team to carry out a theft in which the goal was to destroy $91 million worth of cocaine being sold by a rival of Söze’s business.
However, the fact was that Söze hired them so he could kill a man who had seen what he looked like and could, thus, recognise him. Additionally, the target was being paid by the cocaine dealers. Söze’s scheme was intended to eliminate all traces of that murder, including any witnesses.
The Final End
When Verbal is finished telling his story and declines to testify in court on what he just said to Kujan, the interview with Kujan comes to a close. He posts bail and leaves the jail unhindered.
The pathetic
Verbal is shown as being weak, foolish, and cursed by life throughout the entire film. He has a twisted spine, an uncooperative arm, and a limp, making him the ideal patsy. He is merely a complicit participant in what he is confessing, duped into being a passive viewer.
Even Kujan, who is aware of this, can’t help but belittle him during the conversation. Every moment in both tales makes you feel more sorry for or sympathetic about Verbal, dispelling any doubts that the viewer or Kujan might have that he is anything other than a fool caught up in a botched crime far bigger and more significant than he.
After leaving the precinct and beginning to move away from it at the conclusion of the film, Verbal’s leg straightens out, his limp disappears, and his gait returns to normal. When we step back, we catch a glimpse of a revitalised Verbal, standing tall, strolling with confidence, and proudly smoking a cigarette with his formerly paralysed hand and now-limber, dexterous fingers. We begin to realise that we have all been duped.
We will be certain when Verbal and Kobayashi enter a vehicle. Kujan has just realised something else as he runs out of the station and scans the area frantically: Verbal Kint is Keyser Söze.
The notice board
Kujan knocks over the mug he gave Verbal during the interview, sending it crashing to the ground as Verbal Kint leaves the precinct. On the mug’s base, he can see Kobayashi written as the manufacturer.
As Kujan begins to scan the space, he takes note of the bulletin board behind him, which is covered in papers, wanted posters, etc. Names, locations, and other details from Verbal’s story are printed on various items here and there. He and the audience both realise at that point that Verbal Kint fabricated the entire story up.
Kujan had borrowed a stranger’s office for the interview, so Verbal had observed the area around Kujan’s workplace. Kujan understands that during the interrogation, the truth was both in front of Kint and in his direct line of sight. He rushes outside in an effort to stop Verbal-now-revealed-as-Söze from escaping, but he is lost in the commotion of the city.
What Really Happened in The Usual Suspects’ Ending, Explained?
What actually transpired was the question that most viewers have been pondering since since they left the theatre in 1995 and have been doing so on their couches. Was there any truth to the tale Verbal/Söze told?
And how did Verbal execute all the deeds in the story that were attributed to him while Söze performed all the acts?
Going Around| Exactly Who Is Keyser Söze?
Keyser Söze, an enigmatic drug kingpin and criminal mastermind, occupies a central position in the movie. Only Verbal Kint is still alive to tell the tale of Söze’s most recent misadventure.
The Usual Suspects’ conclusion makes it quite clear to the audience that Verbal Kint is Keyser Söze, or, maybe more precisely, that Keyser Söze is Verbal Kint. Most people can understand this because of how well it is explained in the movie. But how is what many people have trouble with.
How is it conceivable that the one inflicting all of that harm is the one who is presenting his tale? How did Verbal Kint carry out all the deeds attributed to Keyser Söze and still manage to escape unharmed, much alone escape justice?
The truth is that Verbal/Söze did plan the heist with Dean Keaton and his band. He was the mastermind behind the scenes, sending his own attorney to Keaton to recruit him as the group’s head while using the fictitious name “Kobayashi.”
The truth is that Söze/Verbal did plan/use the chance to kill the witness who recognised him and was prepared to tip up the enemy. While the other members of Keaton’s crew botched the cocaine theft and lost their lives as a result, he did it. In their defence, they were ambushed by Söze himself as a result of their blindness.
Söze wasn’t present when the boat detonated, which is why he survived the fire. He was able to flee before his unwitting accomplices, his murder victim, a few victims of collateral damage, and all the other proof of his actual crime blew up into the air because he knew it was going to detonate (because he himself placed the detonators).
The Untrustworthy Narrator
The unreliable narrator, as used in traditional storytelling, is Verbal Kint. Consider Holden Caulfield or Tony Soprano from Catcher in the Rye.
As we watch The Usual Suspects, we are just as unsure of the truth as Kujan, the investigator. We may believe that we are watching the movie from Verbal’s point of view, but in reality, Kujan is the one who is actually watching it as he imagines the crazy story that Verbal is telling.
So, when the truth is revealed at the end (to us by the Kint/transformation Söze’s on the sidewalk; to Kujan by the bulletin board), we’re equally as shocked as he is because, like Kujan, we immediately realise that we cannot trust anything Verbal has said, not even the evidence of our own eyes right now.
The Usual Suspects’s theme and significance
This movie is a reflection on storytelling rather than just a contemporary homage to classic noir. To avert her forebears’ destiny, Söze spins a sophisticated tale, much like Scheherazade does for her spouse, a Sultan who weds a new virgin every night and beheads her the following morning.
And just as Scheherazade ultimately succeeds in earning her husband’s love and devotion and becoming the ruler of the kingdom, Kint too accomplishes so by persuading Kunan with a compelling tale and leaving with the throne of his own criminal kingdom.
Both stories honour the captivating power of storytelling.
Filmmaking Methods Used in The Usual Suspects
Let’s examine some of the methods the movie employs.
John Who?
Due to the audience’s lack of familiarity with Kevin Spacey, a significant portion of the film’s ending’s surprise was dependent on him. Since this was Spacey’s first significant motion picture, most moviegoers were unaware of him when the movie initially came out. In combination with Spacey’s nebulous portrayal of the role, it effectively pushed him to the side and helped the audience to almost completely forget about him. It was absurd to even think that Keyser Söze might be this “lesser” actor.
Contrarily, Gabriel Byrne, who played Dean Keaton, was much more well-known to viewers at the time, increasing the likelihood that those viewers who were attempting to figure out who Keyser Söze really was thought Keaton was Söze. Keaton’s inclusion as the gang’s leader served to reinforce this deft misdirection, which the film’s producers claim was done on purpose to confuse the audience and the police.
The fact that Keaton was a former cop who had been fired for wrongdoing and later staged his own death to avoid answering for it helped the filmmakers further their deception.
Kujan’s own impression of Keaton is utterly at odds with Verbal’s characterization of him as a kind, sympathetic, and gentle-hearted leader. This supports Kujan’s argument that Keaton is Söze and helps to construct a picture of how Söze-as-Keaton must’ve duped Verbal and sought to dupe the police. Kujan believes he is too intelligent to play Verbal’s game, which feeds his delusion that Söze really is Keaton.
The Usual Suspects| How to Fix Plot Holes
In order to let the most knowledgeable and discerning viewers know that not all of Verbal’s statements were true, the directors hid a variety of plot holes throughout the movie. You might have picked up on his deception before everyone else if you had been paying great attention.
For instance, Verbal gave two different accounts of the same event to the Defense Attorney and Kujan. He claims to have never seen Keaton dead, but to the other, he claims to have seen Keaton being shot by a thin person.
Verbal claims in another tip to viewers that he was hiding behind the ropes watching the entire event take place, however in the shot of the ropes taken during the shooting, the filmmakers make it quite plain that no one is present.
How Verbal remembers discussions for which he wasn’t present, like the one between Keaton and Edie after his release from the lineup, is another another plot hole that can only be resolved if he is lying.
Summary of The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects is, in actuality, a piece of deception and misdirection from beginning to end. Even after you realise the movie is all smoke and mirrors, it manages to fascinate and astound, which is what makes it so entertaining and readily watchable again and again.
What did you think of The Usual Suspects’ storyline and climax? Please comment below.
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