The Usual Suspects

Continuity mistake: When the suspects are put into a jail cell together after their interrogation, Keaton walks into the cell. He is wearing his suit jacket in the shot where he walks through the cell door, but in the next shot, where he walks to a bench to sit down, his jacket is now slung over his shoulders.

Other mistake: While inspecting the gems from the robbery, Stephen Baldwin is looking through the wrong end of the jewellers magnifying glass.

Continuity mistake: Near the end, when Agent Kujan realizes who Soze is, he drops his coffee cup and it breaks in slo-mo. If you look closely, you can see that the bottom of the cup does not have the red writing on it. (I will not give away what the red writing is, as it may be a spoiler).

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Continuity mistake: When the suspects are in the garage after Saul, Saul drops a gun and Keaton kicks it over to McManus. However in the next shot McManus picks up a different type of gun.

Continuity mistake: When we first see the Hungarian guy lying in the hospital he is burned over most of his face, however his eyebrow is still there. In a later scene, his eyebrow is gone but his eyelashes are still there.

Continuity mistake: When McManus and Keaton are clearing out the boat, the time of day outside (as shown by the daylight) changes from shot to shot. It should be dark during the entire scene.

Plot hole: The premise is that the back-story is a fabrication, including the five being placed together in the police line-up and in custody in order to get them to work together. But in the flashback of Keaton in the restaurant, it is Dave Kujan who takes Keaton in. It is inconceivable that Kujan would be complicit in the staging of the line-up (and doesn't fit with the plot). And if Verbal is inventing it, then Kujan is going to know it didn't happen. It doesn't make sense and undermines the plot.

Other mistake: The burned guy who's supposed to be Hungarian keeps making bad language mistakes, although his pronunciation is great.

Verbal Kint: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

More quotes from The Usual Suspects

Trivia: The way none of the characters can keep a straight face when reading out the card in the line up was not scripted, but resulted because the cast had had a rather good lunch prior to filming, which included some wine, and were unable to get through what was scripted as a serious scene with straight faces, because of the nature of the scene - supposedly very serious, but they were being asked to utter this rather absurd (and obscene) phrase. Benicio Del Toro also frequently broke wind during the scene, hardly helping the serious tone.

More trivia for The Usual Suspects

Question: How did Soze end up in the police station after he escaped the boat in the first place? If he had vanished after the bombing, he wouldn't have to make up the stories and he wouldn't have been identified by Kujan.

Answer: Kint/Soze ended up in the police station because he simply didn't get away in time.

Answer: Soze ended up back under arrest and for some questioning as 'Verbal Kint'. He never really vanished, he's just playing two parts/people. He really vanishes off the scene by the end of the movie after he tricks Kujan.

With the exception of what's known to have happened on the dock, the entire story is a lie told by Verbal Kint to Agent Kujon. Kujon realises this after Kint leaves the office but not in time to catch up. The entire movie is about a habitual liar making up a story about what happened on the dock. He may be Keyser Soze or an alter-ego variant but even Keysers rep is subject to question as it was told by the same liar. Verbal himself said about Keaton, "He was a grounded guy, a cop. If you think the husband did it then you're right." He was telling on himself as sociopaths will do when they think they're smarter than everyone around them.

More questions & answers from The Usual Suspects

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