THE USUAL SUSPECTS: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Polygram/Gramercy, 1995) Kino Lorber

John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950) is usually cited as the granddaddy of all heist gone wrong crime pictures. And while Huston’s classic has irrefutably stood the test of time, I would sincerely argue 1995’s The Usual Suspects – a picture virtually slammed by the critics, to have been made almost on the fly (with barely a 30-day shoot) and on a shoestring by 27-yr.-old novice film-maker, Bryan Singer, really gives Huston’s classic a run for its money. By any barometer one might choose to measure it, The Usual Suspects is a monumental achievement. Singer’s singular and telescopically focused resolve to make an elegant crime/thriller, wed to a core cast – to include Kevin Spacey (whom Singer befriended at a party), Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Chazz Palminteri, Dan Hedaya and Pete Postlethwaite – most of them, ‘then’ up and comers on the cusp of their respective stardoms, presents the audience with a spiraling enigma into which screenwriter, Christopher McQuarrie delivers the goods on a fascinating ensemble narrative. McQuarrie and Singer were high school mates, and had, in fact, worked together on Singer’s first picture, Public Access (1993), a rarely seen, C-grade mystery skuttled by its practically nonexistent budget.

It was, in fact, Public Access’ debut at Sundance that brought Kevin Spacey to Singer’s attention; Singer, lifting the title - The Usual Suspects – from Claude Rains' line in Casablanca (1942) and telling a reporter his next film would be about “a bunch of criminals who meet in a police line-up” even before he actually had any concrete notions about what such a project would entail. To this kernel of an idea, McQuarrie reinvented an idea from one of his early screenplays about a man who murders his entire family, then disappears. The pivotal character of Keyser Söze's would find its origins in a real-life New Jersey accountant who had similarly achieved such infamy in 1971 and virtually, to vanish without a trace for nearly two decades before he was ultimately apprehended. The names of the central characters owe their origins to a bit of sweet revenge, extracted by McQuarrie on former supervisors and coworkers, with Kayser Sume changed to Söze as its Turkish translation means ‘talks too much’. As for Singer, his inspiration was drawn from such classics as Citizen Kane (1940), Double Indemnity (1944) and Rashomon (1950) – a short list of some very big shoes to fill.

Over the next few months, McQuarrie reworked the screenplay until Singer felt he had something to shop to the majors. Everyone turned him down. Enter Polygram – a fledgling – its executive brain-trust hardly impressed by Singer’s passion or McQuarrie’s non-linear narrative, and even less so after Singer suggested his cast would be made up of actors not yet established in the movies. For the cameo of L.A. fence, Redfoot, the studio went after such big-ticket names as Christopher Walken, Tommy Lee Jones, Jeff Bridges, Charlie Sheen, James Spader, Al Pacino and Johnny Cash. Instead, Polygram discovered the picture was fast becoming an indie ensemble piece, employing actors well below the usual pay scale. Kevin Spacey was the first name attached to the project, immersing himself in the particulars of cerebral palsy, the affliction his character, Verbal Kint suffers from in the movie. Gabriel Byrne’s participation came almost by accident, with Byrne, at first, resisting the urge to partake for ‘personal reasons.’ Pushed to reconsider, Bryne made two requests he was certain the filmmakers would not fulfill – first, that the picture be shot entirely in California so he could be near his family, and second, that production would wrap before the end of the month. When Singer happily agreed, Byrne had no choice but to accept the challenge of playing Dean Keaton, suspected by police of being the mastermind behind their grizzly discovery of 27 bodies aboard the burnt-out shell of a docked freighter. Benicio Del Toro, to play the effete and seemingly inarticulate, Fenster, was Spacey’s suggestion, with the rest of the ensemble coming into focus under Singer’s clear-eyed auspices.   

Made in just 35 days for barely $5.5 million, The Usual Suspects brought out the best in its troupe, genuine camaraderie developing between the principles, with Stephen Baldwin and Kevin Pollak prone to playful pranks for a good laugh. Not all of this horseplay was well received. Indeed, Singer was apoplectic after everyone continued to break from character during the interrogation scene – electing, in the final cut – to merely let one of these less fractured takes stand as his final cut. Alas, in more recent times a queer animosity has developed between these former costars, stemming from some unpleasant comments made by Pollak about Baldwin, and the scandal surrounding Kevin Spacey. The Usual Suspects is as much a ‘mood’ piece as it remains a adeptly elaborated crime/thriller, with editor/composer, John Ottman’s score instantly to set the tone for this unsettling narrative. Enough cannot be said of Ottman’s contribution here, nor, as he served double duty as the picture’s editor, nor that of cinematographer, Newton Thomas Sigel, whose use of sustained creeping zooms and dolly moves, culminates in some very tight close-ups, created an elegant visual claustrophobia, keeping pace and occasionally to surpass even the finest efforts achieved in classic film noirs like The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Big Heat (1953).

After Ottman’s eerily evocative main titles, we zero in on the end of a heist gone sour. Career criminal, Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrnes) lies in a pool of his own blood on the deck of a ship docked at San Pedro Bay as a shadowy figure he calls ‘Keyser’ approaches. Moments later, Keyser murders Keaton, setting fire to his remains and the rest of the ship. At dawn’s early light, police recover charred remains - 27 bodies all told, and, whisk badly burned victim, Arkosh Kovash (Morgan Hunter), a Hungarian mobster, to a nearby hospital for treatment. While being interrogated at hospital, FBI agent, Jack Baer (Giancarlo Esposito) learns the arson/murders might have been committed by Keyser Soze – a much-sought-after underworld kingpin. Police are also introduced to con, Roger ‘Verbal’ Kint (Kevin Spacey) who claims to have witnessed this carnage. U.S. Customs agent, Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) flies to L.A. to grill and pump Kint for the truth. In an extended flashback, we discover Keaton and Kint arrested in New York along with several cohorts - Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin) Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro) and Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak) – suspected in a daring truck hijacking. While temporarily incarcerated, McManus proposes to the rest they pull off a real heist to chagrin the cops. Keaton, at first, resists. But he acquiesces to robbing a jewel smuggler (Paul Bartel) given immunity by a network of corrupt cops. This has the potential to net our motley crew millions in stolen emeralds. Now, McManus and his exiles hightail it to California, partly to wait until the heat blows off, but also to fence their ill-gotten gains via Redfoot (Peter Greene) who proposes an even bigger heist that turns out to be a botched attempt to acquire some synthetic heroin. McManus learns this deal is being orchestrated by Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite), an attorney claiming to have arranged for their initial incarceration at the behest of his employer, Keyser Söze. Kobayashi infers all of them have inadvertently crossed Soze’s path. As recompense, they must now raid the ship docked at San Pedro with Argentinian drug dealers and destroy their $91 million worth of cocaine.

In the present, Kujan unearths there was no cocaine aboard ship. Kint spins the legend of Keyser Söze, a drug runner who murdered his entire family held hostage by Hungarian mobsters, then butchered the mobsters and their families before vanishing without a trace. Now, Kint suggests Fenster was shot trying to flee. McManus and the rest then threatened Kobayashi, who countered with an ominous promise. During the botched shipboard attack a mysterious figure murdered Hockney, McManus and Keaton as a terrorized Kint hid behind some ship’s tackle on the docks. From this story, Kujan surmises Keaton must have been Keyser Söze. The man being held prisoner on the ship, but also murdered, was Arturo Marquez (Castulo Guerra), a smuggler and the only man to have known, and therefore could have identified the real Keyser Söze. Marquez was represented by lawyer, Edie Finneran (Suzy Amis), Keaton's gal/pal, later to be discovered murdered. According to Kujan, Keaton orchestrated this faux heist to murder Marquez and then faked his own death. Kint breaks down and fingers Keaton as the mastermind behind their operation. Alas, everything learned thus far in The Usual Suspects has been a colossal lie. As Kint exits the precinct on bail, Kujan takes notice, virtually all of the particulars in Kint’s confession have been pieced together from random items cluttering up the office. Baer’s interrogation of Kovash with a police artist reveals Kint as Söze. As the man Kint referred to as Kobayashi collects him, Kujan is left on the curb to ponder how he has let one of the greatest criminal architects slip away. Our story concludes with Kint suggesting the greatest accomplishment of the devil is to have convinced mankind he does not exist.

By this penultimate revelation, The Usual Suspects has already evolved into a taut and tenacious crime drama. Even so, the narrative twist at the end is devastating, expertly played by Kevin Spacey who begins the slow ‘big’ reveal for the audience, adjusting Kint’s gimp-like gate, straightening his back and supposedly partially paralyzed hand to reveal a perfectly normal individual. Kint’s mind – mistaken by Kuyan as a claptrap of ‘verbal’ diarrhea, is now exposed as the wicked genius behind this mass murder.  The performances throughout The Usual Suspects are uniformly solid with Spacey, Palminteri and Del Toro (in a role initially designed as a throwaway) doing some of there very best work. Negative critical reaction at the time of the picture’s theatrical release was heavily influenced by the fact, the plot remains shrouded in the minutia of the moment.  If the devil is in the details, The Usual Suspect revels in such detail, yet somehow never to sacrifice substance for style. And, true confession – when I first saw The Usual Suspects in 1995 my mind did wander, trying to neatly fit together the clues McQuarrie’s screenplay was very reluctant to parcel off, as I tried to solve the crime before it actually was resolved for me on the screen…a very foolhardy gesture at best. In this, The Usual Suspects is not unlike Howard Hawks’ 1946 opus magnum of crime, The Big Sleep, where the initial ruse to unearth an identity for the killer of a prominent Californian family’s chauffeur, proves the unsolvable MacGuffin from whence better intrigues manifest on the screen.  In The Usual Suspect’s case, the MacGuffin is Kint’s entire flashback, presented to us as objective narration, only in hindsight to prove a masterful bit of misdirection, meant to obscure the picture’s reality.

The Usual Suspects remains a seminal and satisfying thriller, imbued with Bryan Singer’s efficient direction and Christopher McQuarrie’s Oscar-winning screenplay.  From the moment Soze’s cigarette ignites the shipboard inferno, through Kint’s labyrinth-like exposition of what preceded it, and right up to its’ startling reveal, the storytelling virtuosity on display here is humbling, and has, in the interim of nearly 30 years, aged like fine wine in spite of its’ seemingly ‘one hit wonder’ finale. The Usual Suspects arrives on 4K UHD Blu-ray in a spectacular-looking transfer from Kino Lorber’s alliance with MGM – the current custodians of the Polygram/Gramercy holdings. HDR color grading has been approved by cinematographer, Newton Thomas Sigel. Colors are rich and satisfying with flesh tones much improved over the tired old Blu-ray. The exquisiteness in the picture’s production design abounds herein with minute details coming to the forefront. Film grain looks exceptionally indigenous to its’ source. Contrast is uniformly excellent and shadow delineation could not be better. A couple of anomalies to note: immediately following Kint’s detailing of Keaton’s story, there is a shot of Chazz Palemintari standing in front of Dan Hedaya. Both actors are perfectly in focus, but the shot now appears to have been a composite, the actors shot separately rather than together. It just looks extremely artificial. I cannot recall how it appeared in theaters. Nor am I on the inside track as per how this scene was actually photographed. It might be a composite. If it is, it certainly looks like one. There are also several brief inserts scattered throughout to appear slightly softer than the rest of the footage. True to source or a digital bungle in the mastering process? Again, not sure. These moments are negligible at best. The 4K retains the old Blu-ray’s 5.1 audio (also a 2.0 theatrical release alternative). No discernable differences sonically between the 4K’s 5.1 and the Blu-ray’s 5.1.  Ported over from MGM’s DVD release, a ton of goodies on the making of the movie (almost an hour’s worth) with participation from nearly all concerned. We also get 2 commentary tracks, the first from Singer and McQuarrie, the other by John Ottman. The Singer/McQuarrie track contains more info and is better evolved on the whole. There is also a newly recorded interview with cinematographer, Newton Thomas Sigel. It should be noted, with the exception of the commentaries, none of these extras appear on the actual 4K disc; just the Blu-ray also included for consideration herein. None have been afforded a video upgrade either, so window-boxed, with digital combing abounding throughout. There are also TV spots, and trailers for this movie and similarly themed product being marketed by Kino. Bottom line: the 4K transfer is a revelation and comes very highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

4