THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995) ***1/2 Classic guts and gore. Bryan Singer jumps around through time sequences leading up to a miasmatic reverb climax that leaves you wondering what happened. Fortunately it's good enough to make you wonder about it for 10 minutes after, and there are, just barely, enough clues scattered in your head to put it together. Who is Keyzer Soze? Could it be John Galt? There's certainly enough cash involved and the mercy levels are about the same. Kevin Spacey, one of 6 leads, won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. He was very, very good, but probably the weakest among equals including Gabriel Byrne and Stephen Baldwin (the two best), Chazz Palminteri (are there really cops this smart?), Benicio Del Toro (shoulda been nominated), and Kevin Pollack. The criminals, as usual, get all the good lines and the attitudes are competitive with anything found in the greatest films of this genre-no, wait there haven't been any films in this genre, I guess Goodfellas and Fight Club would be reference points. A film's film, not terribly worried about maintaining believability when to do so would require a break in momentum, perfectly willing to break momentum for the sake of breaking momentum thereby sustaining viewer perplexity, told down to the audience without making any efforts to allow them to catch up. Singer films agitated short term memory as well as anyone.
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