A detective (Chazz Palminteri) questions a con man about his relationships with assorted criminals (Stephen... (Learn more)
Starring: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri (View All)
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Starring: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri
Near the end of The Usual Suspects, Kevin Spacey, in his Oscar-winning performance as crippled con man Roger "Verbal" Kint, says, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." This may be the key line in this story; the farther along the movie goes, the more one realizes that not everything is quite what it seems, and what began as a conventional whodunit turns into something quite different. A massive explosion rips through a ship in a San Pedro, CA, harbor, leaving 27 men dead, the lone survivor horribly burned, and 91 million dollars' worth of cocaine, believed to be on board, mysteriously missing. Police detective Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) soon brings in the only witness and key suspect, "Verbal" Kint. Kint's nickname stems from his inability to keep his mouth shut, and he recounts the events that led to the disaster. Five days earlier, a truckload of gun parts was hijacked in Queens, NY, and five men were brought in as suspects: Kint, hot-headed hipster thief McManus (Stephen Baldwin), ill-tempered thug Hockney (Kevin Pollak), flashy wise guy Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), and Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a cop gone bad now trying to go straight in the restaurant business. While in stir, someone suggests that they should pull a job together, and Kint hatches a plan for a simple and lucrative jewel heist. Despite Keaton's misgivings, the five men pull off the robbery without a hitch and fly to Los Angeles to fence the loot. Their customer asks if they'd be interested in pulling a quick job while out West; the men agree, but the robbery goes horribly wrong and they soon find themselves visited by Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), who represents a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze. Soze's violent reputation is so infamous that he's said to have responded to a threat to murder his family by killing them himself, just to prove that he feared no one. When Kobayashi passes along a heist proposed by Soze that sounds like suicide, the men feel that they have little choice but to agree. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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US Release Date
8/16/95
MPAA Rating
Rated R
Running Time
105 mins.
Locations
- San Pedro, CA
Language
- English
Box Office Total
$22,627,479
Awards
- Nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award at the 1995 Screen Actors Guild [Festival/Award] Awards.
- Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards [Festival/Aw Awards.
- Winner of the Best Ensemble Acting award at the 1995 National Board of Review [Festival/Awa Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Picture award at the 1995 National Board of Review [Festival/Awa Awards.
- Winner of the Best Supporting Actor (Runner-up) award at the 1995 National Society of Film Critics [Fest Awards.
- Winner of the Best Original Screenplay award at the 1995 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 1995 Chicago Film Critics Association [Fest Awards.
- Winner of the Best Supporting Actor award at the 1995 Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scie Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Cinematography award at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards [Festival/Aw Awards.
- Winner of the Best Supporting Actor award at the 1995 Chicago Film Critics Association [Fest Awards.
- Nominated for a Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion award at the 1995 Hollywood Foreign Press Association [F Awards.
- Winner of the Best Supporting Actor award at the 1995 National Board of Review [Festival/Awa Awards.
- Winner of the Best Supporting Actor award at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards [Festival/Aw Awards.
Distributor
- Gramercy Pictures
- PolyGram Video
