History Film / TheUsualSuspects

* {{Corpsing}}: In the line-up scene, right after [=McManus=] [[ChewingTheScenery overacts to hell]], the others are clearly struggling not to laugh at him. And then they all crack up before Fenster's turn. (in reality, no one could keep a straight face while filming that scene, apparently helped by Benicio del Toro having terrible flatulence - Gabriel Byrne, who's standing ''right next'' to del Toro, is clearly covering his nose)

* AllNaturalFireExtinguisher: The first glimpse we get of the infamous Keyser Soze is when he pisses on a PowderTrail to put it out before it can blow up a dock.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: The Usual Suspects and Keyser Soze; the suspects are shown in a mostly sympathetic light, despite being murdering thieves and Keyser Soze is alluded and framed as a Satanic archetype. The end of this film challenges this perspective though, since all of this is coming from [[spoiler:Verbal's recantation of the movie's events, that's revealed to be mostly consisting of improvised lies created from what Verbal saw in the room]]. There's also the fact that Kujan views Keaton, the de-facto leader of the gang, as a murdering, scheming scumbag due to his past crimes, while in Verbal's words, he's a decent, if flawed, man who tried to escape from his past. Given that we cannot trust [[spoiler:Verbal's words, given that he lied and quite possibly ''is'' Keyser Soze]], we have no idea how bad the men really are.

** Arguably almost all of the characters who wind up dead. With the exception of Edie, all of them are murderers and hardened criminals, albeit somewhat less ruthless and effective than Keyser Soze and some of his associates.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The main characters are the Usual Suspects and Agent Kujan; the Suspects are hardcore criminals who've committed prolific robberies and committed several murders throughout the movie, while Kujan is a massive asshole who brings up Keaton's past in front of investors, when the latter is trying to move on with his life and commits verbal and physical abuse while interrogating Verbal. However, the suspects are shown in a sympathetic light (all of them care for each other to some extent and have loved ones that are threatened by Soze) and Kujan is just trying to nab a dangerous crime lord and solve a case. The BigBad of the film is Keyser Söze's, a crime lord who had [[spoiler: supposedly murdered his entire family, the Hungarian mob, and anyone barely associated with them to prove himself as TheUnfettered, kills off all of the Usual Suspects (indirectly or directly), and manipulates several events to leave himself on top while several people end up dying]].

* CluelessMystery: With the reveal that [[spoiler:Verbal is really Keyser Soze and that he lied several times during his story, making up parts from things that he saw from objects within the room]], the audience ends up knowing only a little more than what they did before watching the movie, and it may or may not be the truth.

* RealAfterAll: At the end, Kujan realizes that [[spoiler:Verbal has lied throughout the confession and that the dying Hungarian had given a description of Keyser Soze, ''that matches Verbal's appearance'']], putting the whole events of what happened into question. However, [[spoiler:Verbal/Soze]] is picked up by none other than [[spoiler:[[TheDragon the man representing Soze]], "Kobayashi"]], meaning that some parts of the story ''are'' true, but we don't know all the parts that aren't.

* AmbiguouslyEvil: The Usual Suspects and Keyser Soze; the suspects are shown in a mostly sympathetic light, despite being murdering thieves and Keyser Soze is alluded and framed as a Satanic archetype. The end of this film challenges this perspective though, since all of this is coming from [[spoiler:Verbal's recantation of the movie's events, thats revealed to be mostly consisting of improvised lies created from what Verbal saw in the room]]. There's also the fact that Kujan views Keaton, the de-facto leader of the gang, as a murdering, scheming scumbag due to his past crimes, while in Verbal's words, he's a decent, if flawed, man who tried to escape from his past. Given that we cannot trust [[spoiler:Verbal's words, given that he lied and quite possibly ''is'' Keyser Soze]], we have no idea how bad the men really are.

** A couple of times, Gabriel Byrne lapses back into his native Irish accent.

The movie is told mostly in flashback form. Roger "Verbal" Kint (Creator/KevinSpacey) is the only survivor of a bombing and shootout that left 27 people dead. While his lawyer fights for his speedy release from police custody, Kint begrudgingly reveals the events leading up to the previous night's explosion to Customs Agent Dave Kujan (Creator/ChazzPalminteri). Meanwhile, in a hospital not far away, it is revealed that a Hungarian dealer survived the blast, though unfortunately he only speaks Hungarian and isn't in much shape to be divulging his story. Kujan is determined to get the truth, no matter what it takes -- particularly the truth about Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), one of Kint's fellow "suspects" and the target of his longtime vendetta.

This dark and multilayered 1995 neo-noir film [[StarMakingRole helped launch the careers]] of Creator/KevinSpacey (who earned an Oscar for his performance), Creator/BenicioDelToro, director Creator/BryanSinger, and writer Creator/ChristopherMcQuarrie, as well as relaunch that of Creator/GabrielByrne.

This dark and multilayered neo-noir film [[StarMakingRole helped launch the careers]] of Creator/KevinSpacey (who earned an Oscar for his performance), Creator/BenicioDelToro, director Creator/BryanSinger, and writer Creator/ChristopherMcQuarrie as well as relaunch that of Creator/GabrielByrne.

* InterrogationFlashback: The story is told as a testimony given by Verbal to the police who are interrogating him.

** Verbal shooting Saul Berg's dealer's bodyguard while Keaton was struggling with him in an effort to minimize the killing.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:: Drug dealers rape Keyser Söze's wife, cut his son's throat in front of his eyes, then threaten to kill the rest of his family unless he hands over his turf. He responds by killing two of the drug dealers, then the rest of his family, then hunting down the drug dealers' families and everyone they've ever known or done business with, while the narrator explains that Söze's real strength is his willingness to do what the other guy wouldn't.

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: [[spoiler: Edie]]. Her death is revealed as a WhamLine for Verbal, which so devastates him that he finally turns on Keaton. [[spoiler: It's of course later revealed that he actually ordered her murder]]. She was the only main character killed [[KarmicDeath who was not involved in any criminal activity]], and her death serves no point beyond facilitating Verbal's VillainousBreakdown.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The main characters are the Usual Suspects and Agent Kujan; the Suspects are hardcore criminals who've committed prolific robberies and committed several murders throughout the movie, while Kujan is a massive asshole who brings up Keaton's past in front of investors, when the latter is trying to move on with his life and commits verbal and physical abuse while interrogating Verbal. However, the suspects are shown in a sympathetic light (all of them care for each other to some extent and have loved ones that are threatened by Soze) and Kujan is just trying to nab a dangerous crime lord and solve a case. The BigBad of the film is Keyser Söze’s, a crime lord who had [[spoiler: supposedly murdered his entire family, the Hungarian mob, and anyone barely associated with them to prove himself as TheUnfettered, kills off all of the Usual Suspects (indirectly or directly), and manipulates several events to leave himself on top while several people end up dying]].

* CallingCard: Keyser Söze’s is two GangstaStyle gunshots to the head. This is how he kills Keaton, Arturro, [[spoiler: and Edie]].

* InterrogationFlashback: The entire movie is Verbal (and the surviving Hungarian mobster) being interrogated and Verbal’s flashback to the events of the preceding weeks. [[spoiler: [[UnreliableNarrator Well, not exactly …]]]]

* TheManBehindTheMan: The Suspects can’t decide whether [[TheDragon Kobayashi]] works for Keyser Söze or whether he is the true BigBad. Only when Keaton comes face-to-face with Keyser is he convinced.

* QuizzicalTilt: Verbal during the New York’s Finest Taxi Service robbery.

* RealityIsUnrealistic: The emeralds the crew steal in their initial heist look like cheap costume jewelry. They were actually real emeralds loaned to the filmmakers from a bank.

* StuffedIntoTheFridge: [[spoiler: Edie]]. Her death is revealed as a WhamLine for Verbal, which so devastates him that he finally turns on Keaton. [[spoiler: It’s of course later revealed that he actually ordered her murder]]. She was the only main character killed [[KarmicDeath who was not involved in any criminal activity]], and her death serves no point beyond facilitating Verbal's VillainousBreakdown.

** Keaton when he realizes “[[PunctuatedForEmphasis There is! No!]] [[PrecisionFStrike Fucking!]] [[PunctuatedForEmphasis Coke!]]"

** A subtle one just before TheReveal. [[spoiler: When Verbal is released, he goes to get his effects, which, according to the cop listing them off, are, “One watch, gold. One cigarette lighter, gold.” Not only was Keyser Söze shown with these exact items in flashbacks, Verbal’s fumbling with Kujan’s lighter earlier begs the question: [[FridgeLogic why does he even have a cigarette lighter in the first place?]]]]
* WhamShot: [[spoiler: “Quartet, Skokie, IL.” The brand of the whiteboard in Rabin’s office, which coincidentally matches up with Verbal’s anecdote about [[LineOfSightAlias being in a barbershop quartet in Skokie, IL.]]]] And far too late, Agent Kujan, and the audience, find out they’ve been played.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: What happened to Redfoot the fence? Well, the original script contained a scene showing his bullet-ridden corpse embedded in a car windshield. [[spoiler: It’s a JustifiedTrope in the end, as “Redfoot” probably doesn’t even exist.]]

* AllNaturalFireExtinguisher: The first glimpse we get of the infamous Keyser Soze is when he pisses on a PowderTrail to put it out before it can blow up a dock.
* AmbiguouslyEvil: The Usual Suspects and Keyser Soze; the suspects are shown in a mostly sympathetic light, despite being murdering thieves and Keyser Soze is alluded and framed as a Satanic archetype. The end of this film challenges this perspective though, since all of this is coming from [[spoiler:Verbal's recantation of the movie's events, thats revealed to be mostly consisting of improvised lies created from what Verbal saw in the room]]. There's also the fact that Kujan views Keaton, the de-facto leader of the gang, as a murdering, scheming scumbag due to his past crimes, while in Verbal's words, he's a decent, if flawed, man who tried to escape from his past. Given that we cannot trust [[spoiler:Verbal's words, given that he lied and quite possibly ''is'' Keyser Soze]], we have no idea how bad the men really are.

* CluelessMystery: With the reveal that [[spoiler:Verbal is really Keyser Soze and that he lied several times during his story, making up parts from things that he saw from objects within the room]], the audience ends up knowing only a little more than what they did before watching the movie, and it may or may not the truth.

* BlackAndGrayMorality: The main characters are the Usual Suspects and Agent Kujan; the Suspects are hardcore criminals who've committed prolific robberies and committed several murders through out the movie, while Kujan is a massive asshole who brings up Keaton's past in front of investors, when the latter is trying to move on with his life and commits verbal and physical abuse while interrogating Verbal. However, the suspects are shown in a sympathetic ight (All of them care for each other some extent and have loved ones that are threatened by Soze) and Kujan is just trying to nab a dangerous crime lord and solve a case. Keyser Söze’s is a crime lord who, [[spoiler: supposedly murdered his entire family, the Hungarian mob, and anyone barely associated with them, kills all of the Usual Suspects, and manipulates several events to leave him on top while several people end up dying]].

* CluelessMystery: With the reveal that [[spoiler:Verbal is really Keyser Soze and that he lied several times during his story, making up parts from things that he saw from objects within the room]], the audience ends up knowing as much as knew before watching the movie.

** [=McManus=] uses a Steyr [=HBAR-T=], a sniper variant of the Steyr [=AUG=] assault rifle to start off the boat shootout.

%%* CluelessMystery

* DramaticDrop: Agent Kujan drops his coffee cup when he realizes that he [[spoiler:let Keyser Söze walk out the door after having him in the police station for several hours spinning his yarn.]]

** There's an early scene of Verbal Kint alone in Rabin's office looking around at his surroundings. [[spoiler:This sets up that he was just pulling details from Rabin's clutter for his story]]

* ConfirmationBias: Discussed InUniverse by Verbal Kint, who accuses Inspector Kujan of this at his interrogation. Later, the audience will discover that Verbal not only discussed it, [[spoiler:but exploited it]]

* ShameIfSomethingHappened: This is how Kobayashi keeps the protagonists working for Söze. When the Suspects try to get Kobayashi to call off the cargo ship job at gunpoint, he calmly leads them to his office where Keaton's lover Edie Finneran is in a meeting. Kobayashi points to her 'bodyguard', noting that he never leaves her side and [[IHaveYourWife will do terrible things to her]] if they don't go through with the job]]. He also names a close family member of each member of the team, [[TheVillainKnowsWhereYouLive their location]], and what he'll do to them if they don't comply with his orders.

* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: "He lets the last Hungarian go. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that (poof), he was gone."
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: In the backstory, semi-mythical criminal mastermind Keyser Söze is faced with other gangsters who try to take over his business by threatening to kill his family. Instead, he kills his family himself, then the gangsters, then their wives, children, friends, and anyone else even tangentially associated with them, and then vanishes into legend.

** Those who speak Hungarian get to hear a cut off joke from Hockney finished by two Hungarian henchmen later in the film.

** In the opening scene, Keyser Söze looks at a gold pocket watch and produce a gold cigarette lighter. Later, in the scene where the gang threatens Kobayashi, we see [[spoiler:Verbal]] wearing a similar watch. [[spoiler:He also collects this watch, along with a gold cigarette lighter, as he leaves the police station, despite having earlier demonstrated his inability to use a similar lighter during his questioning]].
** When Kujan begins to suggest that Keaton might be the one behind the hit on the docks, Verbal can be seen starting to smile. When Kujan comes around from behind Verbal and looks him in the face, the smile disappears, and Verbal continues to pretend loyalty to Keaton. During the interrogation throughout the movie, although it is easy to miss upon a first viewing, Verbal is seen glancing for a second or two away from Kujan or over Kujan's shoulder at the wall behind him in full view of wanted posters and advertisement flyers of names as Verbal is picks up the names of the mysterious associates and contacts such as 'Redfoot' and 'Kobayashi' when Kujan's questioning becomes more intense.

* OhCrap: Kujan gets an epic one when he spots [[spoiler:that the cork board in Rabin's office was made in Skokie, Illinois, where one of Kint's anecdotes took place, making him realize that Kint was making stuff up in order to buy time]]

* OneLastJob: Dean Keaton claims robbing the New York Taxi Service was this. No-one believes him; and Verbal says it only took a day of badgering from [=McManus=] to convince him to take on another job.

* ASinisterClue: Keyser Söze is left handed. A clue to his identity occurs early in the movie, [[spoiler:when Verbal Kint tries to light a cigarette by holding the lighter in his right hand and opening it with his cerebral palsy-afflicted left hand, but can't do it]].

* TwistEnding: [[spoiler:Just when Kujan thinks he's got it all figured out, he looks at the pin board papers and realizes that Kint's story is a massive ball of lies.]]

** A subtle one just before TheReveal. [[spoiler: When Verbal is released, he goes to get his affects, which, according to the cop listing them off, are, “One watch, gold. One cigarette lighter, gold.” Not only was Keyser Söze shown with these exact items in flashbacks, Verbal’s fumbling with Kujan’s lighter earlier begs the question: [[FridgeLogic why does he even have a cigarette lighter in the first place?]]]]

* YouAllMeetInACell: The main characters first meet in a jail cell, and this is revealed to be part of Keyser Söze's plot. The main characters lampshade this as being improbable, since when you're in a lineup it's almost always you and four volunteers the police hired to fill out the lineup.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/usualsuspects.jpg]]

* AndYourLittleDogToo: Drug dealers rape Keyser Söze's wife, cut his son's throat in front of his eyes, then threaten to kill the rest of his family unless he hands over his turf. He responds by killing two of the drug dealers, then the rest of his family, then hunting down the drug dealers' families and everyone they've ever known or done business with, while the narrator explains that Söze's real strength is his willingness to do what the other guy wouldn't.

* CompositeCharacter: Originally, there were two San Pedro Policemen working with Kujan -- Sergeant Rabin and Capt. Leo. However, the writer had to trim down the script, so he compressed the two characters into one, the Sergeant Rabin of the film. In the commentary, Singer and the writer thought this was for the best, as Leo was envisioned as a [[DaChief stereotypical angry police chief]].

* InterrogationFlashback: The story is told as a testimony given by Verbal to the police who are interrogating him.

* IHaveYourWife: When the Suspects try to get Kobayashi to call off the cargo ship job at gunpoint, he calmly leads them to his office where Keaton's lover Edie Finneran is in a meeting. Kobayashi points to her 'bodyguard', noting that he never leaves her side and will do terrible things to her if they don't go through with the job. He also names a close family member of each member of the team, their location, and what he'll do to them if they don't comply with his orders.

* InMediasRes: The film opens with Keaton on the deck of the ship about to blow it up. He's stopped. Soon, the police drag in Verbal to tell them HowWeGotHere.

* SeamlessSpontaneousLie: [[spoiler:The entire movie is one long example.]]

* ShameIfSomethingHappened: This is how Kobayashi keeps the protagonists working for Söze.

* SuspectExistenceFailure: Agent Kujan tells the same subversion story about Dean Keaton. Some time in the past, when Keaton was being investigated for some crimes he committed as a cop, Keaton suddenly died. Then, in few months, the witnesses were killed off too, someone else got convicted of the crime Keaton was accused of, and you guess it, Dean Keaton turns up quite alive and well. This episode is presented by Dave Kujan as a pinnacle of Keaton's evil, so they appear to be quite genre savvy in that regard.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: "He lets the last Hungarian go. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that (poof), he was gone."

* UnstoppableRage: Keyser Söze himself killing his wife and child to stop the home invaders from using them as hostages, then killing all but one of the invaders (so he'd go tell his associates), then going out and killing everyone connected with the people who did the home invasion of his house, including people whose only connection was that they owed money to them or had dealings with them.

* SayingTooMuch: [[spoiler:If you listen closely during the final interrogation, Verbal actually says, "I did kill Keaton," but neither the detective nor the audience pick up on it.]]

* ConvenientlyPreciseTranslation: Subverted: a Hungarian who encountered Keyser Söze is translated by an American interpreter as saying that they picked up a pasas, or "package." In reality, ''pasas'' is actually Hungarian slang for "guy," which no one realizes until much later on, giving Verbal enough time to mislead the interrogator until his bail is posted. The fact that the translator's first language is English, and less likely to know slang in another language, makes this scene more realistic.