The cake is a lie.

hovering_above

I love movies with big twist ending. I love movies that play with your mind and leave you completely confused until the very end where everything finally makes sense.

So I should like 'The Usual Suspects', right? Let's see: Confusing plot? Check. Big twist? Check. Point of the whole movie? NONE.

This movie attempts to be clever by blatantly treating you, the audience, as an idiot. I pushed through this boring, big mess of a movie expecting a huge final revelation that would put all the puzzles pieces together. In the end, the movie throws all the puzzle pieces into the fire and laughs at you.

*****SPOILERS***** (but really, don't bother watching, just read)

What makes a good mystery thriller movie? CLUES! You are supposed to leave clues for the audiences to pick up so that when they watch the movie for a second time, they can bang their heads and say "Why didn't I notice that the first time?" In this movie, there is NO CLUE at all. Keyser Soze could have been ANYONE of the characters. The audience could never really know who is Keyser because the whole time we are forced to watch the movie from Verbal's own flawed and purposely misguided perspective!

The 'twist' is one big joke. So Verbal is lying all the time? That's a twist? You dare to call that a twist? How brilliant! I could have never see that coming!! No, really. You could have never see it coming because there is literally NO WAY for you to see it coming; nothing is revealed until the movie almost ended. The only way you could have guessed is because, you know, "the weakest, least suspicious man is probably the killer!" What a cliché. The ending basically makes the rest of the movie completely pointless, and gives no reason for me to re-watch the movie again, because it would be like listening to a liar tell a story all over again.

The plot is another one big problem. The entire first hour of the movie could have been scrapped off and still makes the movie a coherent story. All the useless, boring dialogues, all the random robberies and gun shooting, did absolutely NOTHING to advance the main story or develop any of the character. Nothing relevant actually happens until the part where Kobayashi popped up and revealed the main plot about Keyser Soze and the boat hijacking. So, bad twist ending aside, the plot doesn't do the movie any justice either.

The acting? Nothing amazing. What Verbal does in nearly the whole movie is limp and talk, talk, talk while giving a straight and near- emotionless face. Casting any middle-aged balding actor as Verbal would have achieved the same effect. I can't say Spacey is a bad actor because I don't think he is, but his performance as Verbal is certainly not Oscar-worthy.

*****END SPOILER*****

I understand that movie ratings are subjected to personal tastes and perceptions. I can understand why so many people like movies such as 'The Dark Knight' or 'Reservoir Dogs' even though I find them highly overrated. But I simply cannot accept that a movie like 'The Usual Suspects' is hailed as "the greatest twist movie ever" even after 20 years, when there are so many better ones like 'The Sixth Sense', 'Memento', 'Fight Club', or the highly underrated 'Identity'.

Spend your two hours wisely. On anything. Just not on this movie.

score 1/10

hovering_above 27 May 2013

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2803267/