By Jason Haskins
Being a chipper kid who grew up watching all of the 90s gems, I couldn't wait to watch The Usual Suspects again. I was shocked to see how it hadn't really stood up very well. Why it's a cult film escapes me.
The Usual Suspects is Bryan Singer's second film, and the one that really pushed his career off the ground, which would continue to soar from Apt Pupil (the Stephen King adaptation) to the first two X-Men films. This is the story about a boat being destroyed, tons of dead bodies showing up, and the one sole witness recounting his testimony as to how it all went down. Through his perspective we see how the events led up to the end and perhaps piece together what went down. Problem is that this narrator (Kevin Spacey) isn't the most credible witness- he's a member of these Usual Suspects.
The ending is the film's claim to fame and has been talked about for years after its release in 1995. When I originally rented this as a kid I remembered the clerk saying how much I'd dig the ending and, personally, it's one of the few things I remember about the film. This is a fairly mundane crime movie in many regards. You meet these characters who are up to no good and aside from the ending there's no real backbone to the story. The ending itself is a bit of a head-scratcher where you'll have to re-watch it in order to fully comprehend it. What's rough is that the film just isn't that good on multiple viewings because you have to wade through all of the mediocre elements of this film.
Kevin Spacey is a great performer and he's the main reason to check this out. He's a self-proclaimed cripple with a disability and does a great job with all of the mannerisms, all while being quite mysterious. I don't really care for the rest of the cast. Benicio Del Toro is here in a colorful role, but he's muted the whole movie and doesn't get a lot of screen time.
Stephen Baldwin is helplessly miscast as this tough guy wild card character and he's so outrageous that he took me out of the film. Gabriel Byrne is one of the main characters who we're supposed to relate with...but he's one of the blandest actors on the face of the planet. Kevin Pollak and Chazz Palminteri round out the cast...and do very reasonable jobs with the script in front of them.
I hate to pick on a movie that's widely considered a huge classic...but it's about time someone figured out that some sacred movies can't stand the test of time. This is one of them. While this was revolutionary back in the day, I'm sure, it's not as exciting or interesting as it was when I saw it years ago. The pacing is really sluggish and moves too slow to be considered a thriller and there's not enough drama to call it a drama--unless you count how corny a majority of the movie is when it deals with its own thematic content.
While an hour and forty minutes is a solid running time, the movie feels much longer and because of how largely unexciting everything is you'll certainly feel ready for it to be over and maybe piece together what the whole film is about. What's weird about that, too, is that the whole film is sort of...dare I say it...pointless once you get to the ending. There's not a whole lot of flair in Singer's direction nor anything else worth mentioning, aside from Spacey's performance and the classic ending. I'm not saying this is a bad movie, but it's certainly not my cup of tea. Because of my own subjective case of dissatisfaction I'll give it a two-stars.
2 out of 5 stars
© Jason Haskins, 2011
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