The Usual Suspects

Question: One thing doesn't make sense about the line-up: Benicio del Toro spoke that way for the entire movie. So what did he do in the line-up that was funny?

MikeH

Answer: Basically, the actors were improvising their answers, and their inflection, and kept trying to make each other laugh. Director Bryan Singer was angry at first, but eventually decided it fit their characters and their disregard/disdain for authority, and so used the takes in which they were cracking up. In this particular moment, they were laughing at the beginning of del Toro's part because, apparently, he had just broken wind.

Question: Who kills the informant on the boat? How is Verbal outside the boat and also supposed to be the villain who's killed everyone?

Answer: Keyser Soze killed the informant, Verbal was telling the cop his version of what happened to the cop and the movie going audience, to misdirect everyone. Confusing everyone until the revelation at the end of the movie.

Question: Why does Kaiser Soze ask Keaton if he's ready before he shoots him on the boat?

Answer: He was asking if he was ready to die. Keaton knew there was no way out, his partners were dead, and he was injured. There was nothing left for him.

Answer: Once they discovered there were no drugs on the ship and it harboured a sole witness set to testify in federal court, they needed to be disposed of.

Question: At the beginning of the movie, we see everyone getting picked up by the police for the lineup. Everyone except for Verbal. Given that he had the power to orchestrate the lineup, did he get picked up as Verbal, or did he get there some other way?

Answer: Verbal is telling the story to Agent Kujon and makes it up as he goes based on things he sees around the room. Verbal Kint is a master manipulator, so to believe anything he says is ridiculous. The entire story is made up, as he tells it using various bits of truth and things he can see in front of him, which help him to remember his lies. That there even was a lineup would need to be verified to know for sure. The only fact of the story is that the ship burned and all but one witness and Kint are dead. Everything else is speculation based on the word of a known criminal and apparent habitual liar.

Question: Redfoot is the whole reason they ended up in LA (he was the fence), and the reason they got connected to Kobayashi through the attack on the drug dealer. So if he's just a made-up part of Verbal's story, how did they end up in LA, and how did they end up connected to Kobayashi?

Answer: The fence did exist, he just gave him a fake name. His real name wasn't Redfoot.

Question: If the entire movie was the depiction of the ingenious and elaborate planning of Keyser Soze to kill the one man who could positively identify him, then what was the point of this movie? I mean now everyone knows what he looks like since they have his sketch.

Answer: The point of the movie is entertainment, and the twist ending provides that. Within the movie, Soze doesn't care that everyone will know what he looks like any more.

Continuity mistake: In the climactic boat scene, when Kevin Pollak runs back from the boat to the van full of money, he shoots the man standing by the back of the van. Pollak is then shot in the back as he looks at the money in the back of the van. When Kevin Spacey returns to the van later in the boat scene, we see Pollak's dead body lying on the ground behind the van; however, the dead body of the man who Pollak killed has disappeared. (01:17:50 - 01:25:35)

More mistakes in The Usual Suspects

Cop: I can put you in Queens on the night of the hijacking.
Hockney: Really? I live in Queens. Did you put that together yourself, Einstein?

More quotes from The Usual Suspects

Trivia: In the lineup scene, when the officer asks Benicio del Toro to repeat the phrase "in English, please," the voice is actually the director, Bryan Singer. That line was not scripted. The director actually wanted to retake Benicio's line because he didn't think it was understandable. He ended up keeping it because he thought it was funny.

More trivia for The Usual Suspects

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