As time goes by, what made "The Usual Suspects" unusual may be lost on the jaded moviegoer. You must remember that in 1995, this movie told a different kind of gangster story and it had a different kind of format.
The spine of the movie is an interview by two police detectives with an eyewitness, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). Verbal's tale is mostly told in flashbacks with an unseen villain named Keyser Soze manipulating everyone like they were pieces in his chess game. Verbal's story and how it is told is what made this one of the most intelligent movie scripts to have been produced.
After "The Usual Suspects" was released, other films to come would copy the format of its ending, i.e., to use a montage of clues carefully laid out for the viewer throughout the movie to underscore the big revelation.
The spine of the movie is an interview by two police detectives with an eyewitness, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey). Verbal's tale is mostly told in flashbacks with an unseen villain named Keyser Soze manipulating everyone like they were pieces in his chess game. Verbal's story and how it is told is what made this one of the most intelligent movie scripts to have been produced.
After "The Usual Suspects" was released, other films to come would copy the format of its ending, i.e., to use a montage of clues carefully laid out for the viewer throughout the movie to underscore the big revelation.