The Usual Suspects

There is a burnt out ship in San Pedro harbour with twenty-seven dead bodies aboard. The Los Angeles Police department in conjunction with the FBI belive it to be a drug deal gone sour, yet there are no drugs aboard. As well as the drugs there is apparently $91 million in cash missing from the ship. The dead remains of ex-crooked cop Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) are suggested to be on board. However, one man – Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) – has a theory of his own that could bring light upon the whole situation.

All he has to work with are the only two survivors of the harbour massacre. One is a notorious Hungarian Mafia hitman who cannot speak English, suffered burns to 60% of his body, and is half-comatose. The other goes by the name of Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint (Kevin Spacey) who seems to know more about the whole situation then he mentioned in his testimony. Verbal’s testimony gave him total immunity and it seemed to everyone that he is ‘protected up on high by the prince of darkness’. However, after some severe threats Agent Kujan manages to coax Verbal into telling him the real story behind the harbour affair from the very beginning.

Six weeks earlier Verbal and four other felons where brought in by the NYPD on a trumped up charge of firearm smuggling. The other four were McManus (Stephen Baldwin) a top notch entry man, Fenster (Benicio Del Toro) a real tightarse who knew his job, Hockney (Kevin Pollock) the one guy who didn’t care about anyone but himself, and finally Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) ex-corrupt cop trying to go legit. After spending half a night in jail the five decided to retrieve some dignity by screwing over the NYPD. This event starts a chain reaction that eventually leads the 5 men to the boat in the harbour at San Pedro.

However the unseen enigma that unravels onscreen is the identity of the unseen Turkish drug lord known only in whispers and existing only in shadows. The infamous Kaiser Zoze who wittingly plays the men as pawns in his game of revenge. He is everywhere and he is nowhere. And (pooof) like that…he’s…gone!

Only Verbal has the answers and its up to Agent Kujan to try and unravel the tangled web of stories that Verbal has spilled at his feet.

The Usual Suspects is absolutely stunning. It is without a doubt one of the best suspense and drama movies of the last decade. You will never forget the whole movie let alone the major twist you stumble onto at the end. It will leave you in absolute awe and kicking yourself that you didn’t see the obvious signs earlier on. It is a visual masterpiece with outstanding performances from the entire cast. Kevin Spacey was immaculate as the weak cripple. Similarly Gabriel Byrne was excellent as the stronger character in control of the whole situation. Stephen Baldwin played an excellent crazy man while Bencio DelToro was funny as the Latino break and enter guy.

This 1995 thriller has now made the conversion to DVD, and the transfer seems to have faired reasonably well. Grain is a minor problem in some scenes, but generally the picture is rather clear and sharp. Film artefacts aren’t a major distraction from the film, and MPEG artefacts are only really noticeable if you park your nose right up in front of the set.

The film is presented with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and is 16:9 enhanced. The shadow detail in this movie seems reasonably fine, but is still quite far from perfect. There are no major concerns with aliasing, colour saturation or bleeding. Overall a rather tidy job although I had hoped for a little better.

Unfortunately the audio soundtrack to this one is only Dolby Digital 2.0. So we can ignore mentioning the surrounds and subwoofer and get straight into the clarity.

The Usual Suspects is reliant very heavily on dialogue, and the DVD comes through like a champ. Compared to my warn out VHS copy the DVD sounds superb, I can even understand all those mumbling lines from Benicio DelToro.

There appears to be no audio sync problems, the clarity is superb and there is no low level noise. For a Dolby 2.0 soundtrack this one comes out rather well.

After all the delays to release this disc, I was a little disappointed with the lack of special features contained on this disc. The audio commentary with Bryan Singer (Director) and Christopher McQuarrie (Writer) was an interesting listen. Due to the complexity of the movie it was very interesting to listen to this one for the full 101minutes and was reasonably interesting the whole way through.

There is also the standard theatrical trailer, and a very nice looking and well set out cast and crew bio. This would probably have to be the nicest looking biography menu I’ve seen yet, which is a pleasant surprise because they are usual drab and hardly worth wasting your time looking at. Actually I must say that all the menus are very nicely layed out with some very stylish animated backgrounds. Unfortunately they’d have to be the highlight of all the features, which is a shame.

Overall this is a very nicely put together disc. The animated menus are spectacular and the transfer is quite nice for a six year old movie. The special features are a small let down, but the audio commentary is a great bonus. The Usual Suspects is a classic in its field, and is a worthy addition to any collection. If you’ve never seen the Usual Suspects then check it out, it is one of the most intriguing films you'll ever get to see.