Rating: 
Summary: excellent film, but dvd audio track is only Dobly Surround
Review: This review is limited to the DVD version. The disc is not encoded with 3/2.1 sound as one would expect; instead, it is limited to 3/1 audio, with no subwoofer signal. I can't recall whether the theatrical release had distinct surround sounds or not and I guess I'll never know. Film: 5 stars, Audio: 4 stars (disappointed with no rear or subwoofer information) END
Rating: 
Summary: Clever Movie!!
Review: A twisted, mystery and intriging movie that keeps you at the edge of your seats the whole time. It's a who-done-it movie and how the truth unravels is excellent. Great acting by Kevin Spacey and Benecio del Toro. One of my favorite movies of all time. END
Rating:
Summary: Great Flick!
Review: This is an excellent movie. A very, very unconventional "gangster" movie about 5 guys who devise one helluva scam and pull it off...or did they *reallyy* pull it off themselves? There's an absolutely *fabulous* twist at the end that will have you thinking for days. Humorous and witty too. A great flick that you'll watch many times! END
Rating:
Summary: An explosive, exciting book that's a puzzler until the end
Review: The usual suspects is a great movie. It has great acting by Kevin Spacy, who plays the gymp. The movie itself at the start is quite confusing until the end where it brings it all together. END
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite movies of all-time, with the best ending!
Review: I was blown away by the ending of this movie. It was just great. 5 guys have been set up by someone they don't know even exists, someone they're still afraid of. They are ordered to do the impossible, or be killed. Great movie. 95/100 for me
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece Especially the Ending!!
Review: Usual Suspects is an excellent well plotted movie. It sent chills down my spine when I realized Kevin Spacey was Kazer Soze. You must see this movie!
Rating: 
Summary: Too clever for its own good.
Review: Confusion remains the common denominator in "The Usual Suspects," in which director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie are determined to create a fresh and inviting thriller, but come up empty. The star-studded cast is a delight to watch, but the film is so fixated on its own cleverness and originality that it quickly loses interest, deadening the impact of a surprise twist ending that may have worked had it had a better lead-up. Perhaps what makes the film so cumbersome is its shift from past to present, and vice-versa. Beginning with an explosion aboard a ship on which a shootout has just occurred, the movie then shifts back six weeks to the arrest of five men, all accused of stealing a van full of weaponry. Four of the men, Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Fred Fenster (Benicio del Toro), Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollack), and Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey), concoct a plan of revenge against the NYPD, and the hesitant Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) joins in. After a deluge of plot twists and scenarios that seem completely out of place, the group finds themselves on the West Coast, at the mercy of a well-known man by the name of Keyser Soze, whose lawyer gives each of them a file documentation of their lives as watched by Soze. The motive: each of them has wronged Soze at some point in the past, and their chance for repentance comes with the raid on a cocaine deal set to go down in three days. All of this is narrated and seen in the mind of Kint, played with a fiendish glee by Kevin Spacey, who turns in a well-rounded performance. The rest of the cast also leave lasting impressions: Stephen Baldwin makes a great all-around bad boy, Benicio del Toro is increasingly witty, Kevin Pollack is the ideal picture of gruff and uneasy, and Gabriel Byrne instills in his character a growing sense of unease. But their talents are ultimately cast into a lost cause. "The Usual Suspects" manipulates its viewers to the end, taking us where only it wants to go, leaving no room for speculation or thought on the events at hand. It does this by throwing so much at the audience at once that the fear of missing out on something intrical to the overall plot becomes unbearable. In trying to think about what was going on, and watching each scene with full concentration, I almost went mad. In effect, the ending to Christopher McQuarrie's screenplay has little impact. You will be surprised at the movie's final turn of events, but the material prior to it lacks enough interest or even coherence to give the twist any logical sense. To me, the ending seems more like a blind leap towards greatness than a satisfying payoff to the film's convoluted script. Many will disagree with my thoughts on "The Usual Suspects," and some may even recommend watching it twice to understand the film's twists. I did, and came up short both times. Aspirations of greatness are evident throughout the plot, but they amount to little more than just aspirations. As much as I wanted to understand the central story, I can't forgive a film that throws so much into the pot that the soup is too thick to thin out again.
Rating:
Summary: DEFINITELY NOT......YOUR "USUAL" MOVIE
Review: "The Usual Suspects" certainly defies pigeon holing or labeling. Its larger-than-life allure results from a seamless blending of elements: Pschodrama, Action, Suspense and Mystery, all built on intricate storytelling, a dynamic screenplay and taught direction, by Bryan Singer. The aforementioned are all bolstered by credible in-depth character development, brought to life by an outstanding cast, who flesh out each role to chilling near perfection. (Kevin Spacey, seen here before most people would have recognized his name, received an Oscar for his "supporting" role!)But let's not get sidetracked. More than anything else,"SUSPECTS" is about the unparalleled unsettling reaction you get from viewing it! From the first scene to the end credits, it gets a headlock on your psyche, while sending the pit of your stomach into endless free fall! The only way to illustrate this, without giving away any key elements of the film, is a detailed look at the opening scene....a peerless example of instant timeless classic film noir. On a boat, docked in San Pedro Harbor, the dying sole-survivor of an apparently devastating bloodbath shootout painfully ignites a thin trail of gasoline. His obvious intention: Destroy EVERYTHING...himself included! From a deck higher up, an unseen someone pisses out the trail of flames. The shadowy figure walks down the stairs with an unhurried beliberation and saunters over to the agonizing man he has just saved. They exchange somewhat forced greetings and a few disjointed words of banter. Without warning, the intruder firmly raises a pistol, his unblinking gaze reflected in eyes locked in contact with his own. Unhesitatingly, he fires two consecutive shots. A brief pause of contemplation ends when he casually lights a cigarette, stategically dropping his lighter to rekindle the liquid fuse, and then beats a hasty off-board retreat. What better way to introduce a character whose twisted iron resolve is so perverse, so deranged, that he saves a doomed man seconds before certain death, solely for the unmititgated pleasure derived from looking him squarely in the eye, his victim looking right back, while pulling the trigger himself. Without uttering a syllable, his actions shout out,"I piss on you and your puny existence!" His victim's final moments are thusly converted into a living/dying testimony, clearly demonstrating who it is that decides the particulars of when and how he will die! "SUSPECTS" has been severely critiqued by a vocal minority (to paraphrase another Amazon reviewer) for not knowing the difference between a plot twist and a non sequitur. With all due respect to the reviewer, who painstakingly highlighted the difference for us, perhaps a careful second viewing would shed some light on the source of this common confusion. After watching "SUSPECTS" four times making every effort to employ my most discerning eye, I am convinced the true genius of the movie hinges on this particular point! Let me underscore my unequivocal recommendation of this film with a special note to those of you who avoid the Action or Suspense genre becuase of your distaste of the excessive violence that generally characterizes them. Well, THIS IS NO JOHN WOO FILM! A lot of the scenes are done in the "Old School" style, where the violence is kept off-screen. Although there is considerable TALK in "SUSPECTS" about some of the most dastardly deeds imaginable, virtually none of this is graphically portrayed. So, PLEASE, if you have not seen it yet, because of this reason, I urge you to make an exception in this case...GET IT AND SEE IT!
Rating: 
Summary: Story doesn't play fair
Review: "The Usual Suspects" is a fascinating, convoluted, frustrating, remarkable, confusing mess of a movie. Its incredibly complex plot is fascinating; the plot is convoluted, frequently going in a number of directions at the same time, leaving holes in the plot and gaps that are too often frustrating; is remarkable because its ending ties up the most troublesome of these; but is confusing because it leaves other questions unanswered. Ultimately it's a case of buckshot cinema; it sprays all kinds of ideas, clues, red herrings, and misdirection, and doesn't play fair with the audience in that it drops clues and later pretends they didn't exist. It cheats you.
Oh, not that it's boring. Not in the least. "The Usual Suspects" is equal parts film noir, Agatha Christie murder mystery, and "Reservoir Dogs" wannabe without the great dialogue. The film won an Oscar for best screenplay and another for Kevin Spacey's "supporting actor" role. Spacey's award was well deserved; the cheating screenplay wasn't. Check out the physically impossible moments such as putting out a fire in the film's early moments and, later, blood spattering in the wrong direction in an elevator. Another sin committed here is the showbiz idiocy of an actor firing a handgun while holding it sideways; ask anyone familiar with handgun marksmanship and he/she will tell you that's a sure way to miss your target nearly every time. Stupid. Finally, and worst of all, a key character at film's end whose name is revealed as being made up on the spot even though the writers, in the previous scene, show the character's name in court records from the previous day. Wha?
Personally I don't like being lied to, and the screenplay goes beyond misdirection to out-and-out ripping you off. Unfair. Perhaps a more gullible (or less attentive) viewer won't notice. It's telling that screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie has only had one other screenplay produced in the 10 years since this film was made (2000's "The Way Of the Gun").
It's worth a look, though, partly because of how well and stylishly the finished production cheats on you. Obviously it got away with it, for most people. Also, continuing the obvious parallels to "Reservoir Dogs," this film is far more stunning in terms of cinematography, obviously a higher budget film (I can hear McQuarrie and director Bryan Singer, who were high school buds, pitching this film to prospective producers: "It's an upscale 'Reservoir Dogs' with a bigger twist at the end," which is essentially what it is). Also, the cast cannot be faulted, in spite of one actor who thinks he's Marlon Brando with a worse mushmouth than usual. (Perhaps it's the character who thinks that.) Any film with Spacey sharing extended screen time with Chazz Palmanteri is worth three stars for that alone, and Kevin Pollak & Gabriel Byrne are bonuses. One question: How did Stephen Baldwin sink from this to "The Surreal Life"?
"The Usual Suspects," ultimately, is more frustrating than most films because of how good it could have been. A little more attention to detail and a little less disingenuousness would have resulted in a far, far more satisfying finished product. Another reviewer for Amazon asks if this is the perfect film, and the answer is, "Far from it, but many of the elements are there." If you want to see the nearest thing to cinematic perfection, go back and watch "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Local Hero."
Rating:
Summary: More Than You're Usual Movie
Review: Well crafted film with pristine transfer and original plot. in the middle of the film, i thought i knew who keyser soze is.... hey! what do you know?
this is a fully loaded double sided dvd which promises the audience focused features and the usual clear MGM transfer. the 5.1 Sound is admirable though the sound level has not been equalized. great package nevertheless..
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