Taglines: Five Criminals . One Line Up . No Coincidence.
The Usual Suspects movie storyline. Following a truck hijack in New York, five conmen are arrested and brought together for questioning. As none of them are guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police. The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt. It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze?
The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American neo-noir mystery film directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie. It stars Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Kevin Spacey, Suzy Amis, Benicio del Toro, Giancarlo Esposito and Christine Estabrook.
The film follows the interrogation of Roger “Verbal” Kint, a small-time con man who is one of only two survivors of a massacre and fire on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles. He tells an interrogator a convoluted story about events that led him and his partners in crime to the boat, and about a mysterious mob boss known as Keyser Söze who commissioned their work. Using flashback and narration, Kint’s story becomes increasingly complex.
The film, shot on a $6 million budget, began as a title taken from a column in Spy magazine called The Usual Suspects, after one of Claude Rains’ most memorable lines in the classic film Casablanca. Singer thought it would make a good title for a film, the poster for which he and McQuarrie had developed as the first visual idea.
The film was shown out of competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, and then initially released in a few theaters. It received favorable reviews, and was eventually given a wider release. McQuarrie won an Academy Award for Best Writing (Original Screenplay) and Spacey won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. The Writers Guild of America ranked the film as having the 35th greatest screenplay of all time.[5] It is now remembered for having one of the most celebrated plot twists in cinematic history.
The budget was set at $5.5 million, and the film was shot in 35 days in Los Angeles, San Pedro and New York City. Spacey said that they shot the interrogation scenes with Palminteri over a span of five to six days. These scenes were also shot before the rest of the film. The police lineup scene ran into scheduling conflicts because the actors kept blowing their lines. Screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie would feed the actors questions off-camera and they improvised their lines.
Screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie would feed the actors questions off-camera and they improvised their lines. When Stephen Baldwin gave his answer, he made the other actors break character. Byrne remembers that they were often laughing between takes and “when they said, ‘Action!’, we’d barely be able to keep it together.” Spacey also said that the hardest part was not laughing through takes, with Baldwin and Pollak being the worst culprits.
Their goal was to get the usually serious Byrne to crack up. They spent all morning trying unsuccessfully to film the scene. At lunch a frustrated Singer angrily scolded the five actors, but when they resumed the cast continued to laugh through each take. Byrne remembers, “Finally, Bryan just used one of the takes where we couldn’t stay serious.” Singer and editor John Ottman used a combination of takes and kept the humor in to show the characters bonding with one another.
While Del Toro told Singer how he was going to portray Fenster, he did not tell his cast members, and in their first scene together none of them understood what Del Toro was saying. Byrne confronted Singer and the director told him that for the lockup scene, “If you don’t understand what he’s saying maybe it’s time we let the audience know that they don’t need to know what he’s saying.” This led to the inclusion of Kevin Pollak’s improvised line, “What did you say?”
The Usual Suspects movie trailer.
The Usual Suspects (1995)
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Kevin Spacey, Suzy Amis, Benicio del Toro, Giancarlo Esposito, Christine Estabrook
Screenplay by: Christopher McQuarrie
Production Design by: Howard Cummings
Cinematography by: Newton Thomas Sigel
Film Editing by: John Ottman
Costume Design by: Louise Mingenbach
Set Decoration by: Sara Andrews
Art Direction by: David Lazan
Music by: John Ottman
MPAA Rating: R for violence and a substantial amount of strong language.
Distributed by: Gramercy Pictures
Release Date: August 16, 1995
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