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The Usual Suspects (1995)
In director Bryan Singer's twisting, puzzling and
complicated film-noirish thriller:
- the scene of the police lineup of five tough and
savvy criminals (the ones on all the film's posters, in an NYPD
line-up hauled in after a Queens, NY truck hijacking)
- the film's lengthy scene of limping, weaselly con
man Roger "Verbal" Kint's (Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey)
questioning by federal customs agent/officer Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri)
- Kint's wily tale of the notorious, mysterious, devilish
crime lord Keyser Soze's early life and his description of the first
time he ever heard of Soze: ("The greatest trick the devil ever
pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist...and like that,
he's gone. Underground")
- the criminal mastermind's coldbloodness with Hungarian
rivals followed by his disappearance: ("Nobody's ever seen him
since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their
kids at night")
- the resolution of the identity of the mythic Keyser
Soze (Kevin Spacey himself) at the surprising conclusion - when Kint
slowly lost his limp while walking away and when Kujan scanned the
interrogation office's bulletin board, dropped his coffee mug (with
the logo for Kobayashi Porcelain), and was stunned to realize that
most of the names in Kint's fabricated, swindler story (about Kobayashi-Keyser
Soze-Dean Keaton) appeared on the bulletin board behind the desk
- the film's last line: Kint's voice-over, words that
he had spoken earlier - (he blew on his fingers, as if to say 'Poof!'): "The
greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he
didn't exist. And like that, he's gone"
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