Friday, 28 August 2009

CRASSIC NOT CLASSIC #1 The Usual Suspects (1995)


"Who is Keyser Soze?"
(actually it's pretty bleeding obvious)


Prepare yourself for spoilers. Allow me if you will to set the scene. The date today is the 28th August 2009, that is fourteen years and three days since Bryan Singer's showpiece The Usual Suspects was released over here in the United Kingdom. In these fourteen years the film has garnered mountains of critical acclaim. IMDb, that's the Internet Movie Database, has it listed as the 22nd best film of all time. Empire Magazine has it listed as the 61st in their list of the Best 500 films ever made. So when I sat down to watch it a few weeks ago I was expecting something incredible. Sadly however, The Usual Suspects gets the priviledge of being the first entry into my bad good films section which has been named quite brilliantly by me (thanks to my genius ability to rhyme) 'Crassic Not Classic.'

The story begins on a ship which explodes. This leads to a curious policeman wanting to know all the details as to who, how, what, why and when (actually he knows when...or does he...!?). His one witness is Roger 'Verbal' Kint, played pretty well by Kevin Spacey. What follows is an overly complicated story in which Kint tell us lie after lie about a large cocaine heist until ultimately the most famous twist in film history is revealed to us. Yawn.

The twist is nothing new when it comes to story telling. Most films, even those that are not famous for boasting a huge plot twist, have twists and turns along the way to their conclusion but not all films put all their eggs in one basket like The Usual Suspects does. There is no subtly here, it basically all hinges on what plot turn at the very end.

After the film had initially finished I thought I had enjoyed it. Then, as the days passed, and I thought about the film and thought about my reactions as the story unfolded I realised that I didn't enjoy all that much. Thinking back over it, attempting to understand everything that happens until the revelation is completely pointless because none of it actually occurs. OK, on first viewing we are likely to try and understand what is happening because we are unaware of the final outcome but on a rewatch everything would be completely redundant. We waste the time trying to interpret the majority of the film just to then be told that it was utterly pointless to do so.



I also have issues with the films attitude towards itself. It thinks of itself as refreshing, original and really quite clever but in truth it is none of these things infact it just looks a little tired and lazy at times two words I'm sure Bryan Singer would be horrified to hear aimed at his 'intelligent' little flick.

Don't get me wrong The Usual Suspects is not a badly crafted film, It doesn't display any of the techniques associated with 'bad' film making but by constructing the story the way it did it went and made itself completely unrewatchable. Unlike other films boasting big plot twists, The Usual Suspects has absolutely nothing else going for it and I doubt I will ever want to see this overrated, overconfident mishap ever again. This probably sounds more like a rather short rant than a critical review but a short rant is exactly what I needed to do in order to vent my fury at such a poor attempt of a film.

Rating: 2/10


No comments:

Post a Comment