The Usual Suspects

Em: 00:01:22

Hi, everyone. I'm Em, and welcome to Verbal Diorama, not verbal Kint. Episode 313 the Usual Suspects.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't, that might know who Keyser Soze is, but also isn't completely sure. Welcome to Verbal Diorama.

Whether you're a brand new listener to this podcast, whether you're a regular returning listener, as always, thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I'm so happy to have you here for the history and legacy of the Usual Suspects.

Thank you for your continued support of this podcast. It genuinely means so much that people keep coming back to this podcast. And the Usual Suspects started, unlike so many movies do with a name.

cast was so haphazard back in: 2019

Though not a usual suspect for this podcast because it's a genre I rarely do episodes on. But as it turned out, the Usual Suspects would become one of the most widely celebrated Neo Noir films of all time.

Here's the trailer for the Usual Suspects.

Em: 00:05:45

Roger Verbal Kint is the sole survivor of a bombing and shootout that leaves 27 people dead.

While his lawyer fights for his speedy release from police custody, Kint begrudgingly reveals the events leading up to the previous night's explosion to customs Agent Dave Kujan. Kujan is determined to get to the truth, no matter what it takes.

Particularly the truth about Dean Keaton, one of Kint's fellow suspects and the target of his long-time vendetta. Kint's story begins to centre around the presence of a criminal mastermind named Keyser Soze.

Kujan at first doubts the existence of the bogeyman of the criminal underworld, but as Kint continues his story, Ku Yan eventually realizes just how deep this particular rabbit hole goes. Let's run through the cast of this movie.

We have Kevin Spacey as Roger Verbal Kint, Gabriel Byrne as Dean Keaton, Chaz Palminteri as Agent Dave Kujan, Stephen Baldwin as Michael McManus, Benicio Del Toro as Fred Fenster, Kevin Pollock as Todd Hockney, Pete Postlethwaite as Kobayashi, Susie Amis as Edie Finneran, Giancarlo Esposito as FBI Agent Jeff Baer and Devin Hedaya as Sergeant Jeff Rabin the Usual Suspects was written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Brian Sinner. And like I mentioned, the Usual Suspects is the rare movie where the name came first.

Christopher McQuarrie was asked by a friend what his next script was about, and he read an article in Spy magazine called the Usual Suspect, thinking that was a great name for a movie. The phrase originated from Claude Rain's line in Casablanca.

McQuarrie had grown up in Princeton Junction, New Jersey and knew a guy a year older called Brian Singer, who made eight mm home movies along with another school friend called Ethan Hawke.

McQuarrie would do his friend a solid and star in one of these homemade movies, but his scene ended up on the cutting room floor because teenage boys can be scathing.

When McQuarrie was arrested for shoplifting the year before his senior year in high school, he was sentenced to a 7pm curfew for a couple of months in the summer and Singer would come over to his house to watch movies. They also spent time writing short stories and screenplays.

The two lost touch the year after, but McQuarrie was surprised to hear from Singer in the early 90s after his short film Lion's Den had helped him raise $250,000 for his first full length feature. But he needed a script.

d the Grand Jury Prize at the: 1993

I guess it's about a bunch of criminals who meet in a police lineup. Which incidentally, was the first visual idea that he and Singer had for the poster.

After Sundance, Singer was screening Public Access at a festival in Japan and thought he could secure financing for his next film. Singer called McQuarrie from Tokyo and asked him to write up the Usual suspects idea.

McQuarrie was working in the copy room of an LA law firm at the time and he would use much of his experiences working there to shape the screenplay for the Usual Suspect. He also worked at a detective agency and this also heavily influenced the depictions of criminals and law enforcement officials.

Many of his former work colleagues inspired the characters names. One of the lawyers at the firm had a very striking and unique name. Keyser Sume. McQuarrie could name the villain after his former boss.

Soze is taken from a Turkish idiom which I'm going to mispronounce terribly. Soze Bokmak, meaning to drown in a sea of words or talking too much. Coincidentally, just like the name Verbal.

Also coincidentally, why this podcast is called what It Is Keyser Soze is a mythic figure in the underworld, described as a spook story criminals tell their kids at night.

He is a Turkish drug dealer who gunned down his wife and children rather than let them fall into the hands of his Hungarian rivals before exacting vengeance on the crew and disappearing into the night, never to be heard from directly again.

ed on a real Life Criminal In: 1971

The bodies of Helen List and her three teenage children, Fred, John and Patricia. Helen's mother, Alma, was found dead in an attic apartment.

All of them had been killed by a single bullet to the head, except for John, who had been shot 10 times. The only member of the family not accounted for was the father.

John List Senior, a devout Lutheran and accountant, had previously announced the family was going on holiday and then disappeared, but not before removing his face from every photograph in the home and leaving a confession in his study addressed to his pastor.

In the confession, he admitted to losing his job and owing $11,000 on the mortgage, stealing from his mother and killing his whole family so they didn't have to lose their home and live a life of poverty.

His reasoning for murdering them was that by doing so they were going to a better place and by the time he reunited with them in heaven, they'd have forgiven him. Police tracked his car to Kennedy Airport, but there was no record of him taking flight.

red. Eighteen years later, in: 1989

And remarkably, a woman in Denver, Colorado called in to say it looked like her old neighbour who was going by the name Robert Clark. Clark had since moved to Richmond, Virginia, was a devout Lutheran, was also an accountant, and was also having some money trouble.

History, it seems, always repeats itself.

But on the tip, Robert Clark was apprehended by law enforcement and denied he was John List until he was fingerprinted and it became apparent he was John Listen.

ntenced to five life terms in: 1990

But the story of this motley crew of a nine upturned criminal gang with a non linear storyline and an unreliable narrator wasn't the easiest script to sell. They sent the script to over 50 different companies, all of whom passed a connection from Cannes.

Robert Jones, the producer from the German group wmg, offered to finance the movie. So believing they had the financing in place, they moved forward with casting the movie.

They wanted to get a big name cast, but the limited funds meant casting well below the actor's usual pay.

Verbal Kint had been written with Kevin Spacey in mind, but Spacey was interested in playing the role of Dean Keaton or Dave Kujan, and he was surprised to be offered the role of Kint. He would meet with experts and doctors to portray the character's cerebral palsy accurately and how it could fit into the movie.

The character was written in the script as having cerebral palsy with physical limitations affecting his left hand and left foot, causing him to walk with a limp. This is one of the most crucial elements of the film's famous twist ending. The disability is revealed to be completely fake.

VRBL drops the disabled act as he strolls from the station.

The portrayal of cerebral palsy as part of Verbal's disguise serves the narrative purpose of making him appear harmless and non threatening to both the other characters and the audience.

His apparent physical limitations combined with his nervous, cooperative demeanour helps sell the illusion that he's just a small time con man rather than the criminal mastermind he actually is. This aspect of Verbal's character has been somewhat controversial over the years because it uses disability as a plot device and deception.

The film presents fake disability as part of an elaborate ruse to mislead law enforcement and audiences about the character's true identity and capabilities. Now, in the 80s and 90s, you couldn't really go anywhere without getting a Baldwin in your movie or around your movie.

And this is no exception, because one of the famous Baldwin brothers this time, Stephen Baldwin, had a particularly memorable audition experience because he was frustrated with the roles he was getting in indie films. And when he met with Bryan Singer directly, he went into a 15 minute tirade telling him what it was like to work with difficult directors.

After Baldwin finished his rant, Singer told him exactly what he expected and wanted from the actors, which actually impressed Baldwin and helped him land the role of Michael McManus. Gabriel Byrne was cast as Dean Keaton after being recommended by Kevin Spacey, bringing his established dramatic credibility to anchor the ensemble.

Byrne was already a well known actor from films like Miller's Crossing, so his involvement helped legitimize the project.

But he was dealing with some personal problems at the time, so the filmmakers agreed to shoot the film in Los Angeles to accommodate Byrne's schedule.

Academy Award nominated Pete Postlethwaite was one of Britain's most well respected character actors and he could be guaranteed to bring gravitas and a menacing presence to the role of the mysterious Kobayashi. Chaz Palminteri was unavailable for the role of Agent Dave Kujan. The role was offered to Christopher Walken and Robert De Niro who both declined.

Al Pacino also turned down the role. When Palminteri became available, he was only free for a week and all of his filming was completed during that time.

But his signing was actually integral to the financial future of the film. They cast the five principal actors of the film, Pete Postlethwaite, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Chaz Palminteri and Gabriel Byrne.

And then they found out the German financier actually didn't have the money. So they had to go back to the five actors, explain that they had a financial issue and asked them to sign a 10 day option to commit to the movie.

All five did it and that combined star power helped attract other financiers to pay for the movie. Polygram Filmed Entertainment and Spelling Films International offered $6.5 million and agreed to purchase the film once it was done.

In other words, they did a negative pickup deal. So then the movie was bank financed.

So it meant that Bryan Singer got his financial deal and also got a lot of freedom and power because the money was coming from the bank. As long as the movie stayed on schedule and on budget. Benicio Del Toro wasn't the first choice for Fred Fenster.

The part was written for someone like Harry Dean Stanton. Del Toro didn't want to audition because he doesn't like them, so he was cast without one.

And when he realized Fenster was going to die midway through the movie, he decided to bring his own unique interpretation to Fred Fenster.

His distinctive, mumbling delivery style became one of the most memorable aspects of his performance, and this was largely improvised during the production with the blessing of Bryan Singer.

It's important to add that Del Toro never once strays from what's written in the script, but delivers it in such a way that makes it unintelligible but memorable. There was a lot of improvisation on set and a lot of reaction to stuff that just randomly happened during filming.

Like Stephen Baldwin being hit by a lit cigarette in the face. A genuine reaction that stayed in the movie.

Kevin Pollok was known for his work in comedies and A Few Good Men and brought both dramatic chops and his experience with ensemble work to the role of Todd Hockney. He also improvised a lot of lines for comedic effect.

The casting was crucial because Singer needed actors who could work well together as an ensemble and handle Macquarie's intricate dialogue heavy screenplay. The five main actors spent weeks rehearsing together before filming to build the chemistry and camaraderie that was essential for the story to work.

This rehearsal period was particularly important since much of the film's success depended on the believable relationships between these career criminals who had supposedly just met in a police lineup. That didn't mean everyone always got on, though.

Baldwin and Pollock would acknowledge that their long standing feud with each other began on the set of this film. Though neither actor directly states what caused their animosity toward each other.

Pollock does mention that Baldwin, in an attempt to stay in character as McManus, would go around acting tough and sometimes bully the other actors. Baldwin does admit that he was bullying towards Pollock on the film with their numerous standoff confrontations with each other shown on screen.

McQuarrie worked on about nine drafts of the script over six months and he had the idea for a twist. And the twist was what made the whole thing worth doing.

Originally, when he started writing, it was going to be a story about five felons who meet in a lineup and the poster would be the five guys in the lineup. The name would be the Usual Suspects and the tagline was all of you can go to hell. Singer fully admits to taking inspiration from Reservoir Dogs.

It was McQuarrie who suggested what if this all came off this bulletin board and that became the reason to make the movie? To do this big reveal, they needed to go back into the movie and find every scrap of footage. Alternate takes, creepy shots, interesting shots.

To convince the audience that Gabriel Byrne's Dean Keaton was Keyser Soze, they used outtakes, bloopers, audio tracks, whatever they could find to substantiate Dave Kujan's suspicions about Keaton, to make the audience feel and truly believe that they're getting the climax of With Gabriel Burns reveal as Keyser Soze. Singer didn't just want this in some audio exposition, he wanted viewers to see it narratively.

Even Gabriel Byrne was initially told by Singer that he was Keyser Soze to lend the authenticity to his performance.

So he genuinely believed he was playing a character playing this legendary villain, even persuading Byrne to stand in a trench coat with a pistol and fire down at the spot his character was supposed to be sitting in. It wasn't in the script, so Byrne questioned it, but Singer felt they needed an image of him as Soze.

The Usual Suspects was filmed over 33 days in Los Angeles and San Pedro and then two days in New York. The strict 35 day schedule was necessary to stay under budget. The cast spent an 18 hour day shooting the underground parking garage robbery.

According to Byrne, by the next day, Singer didn't have all of the footage he wanted to, but refused to stop filming in spite of the bonding company's threat to shut down the production. But the Usual Suspect's most iconic moment comes at the very start of the film when the five potential criminals appear in a police lineup.

Asked to read a certain line which rhymes with Hand me the keys you took ing block Booker. The reactions and fits of laughter weren't scripted.

This scene was supposed to be played completely straight and seriously to show them all being defiant to the police. Christopher McQuarrie explained on Twitter that it was due to Benicio del Toro's flatulence.

During the take, the cast were erupting into fits of laughter after the smell permeated in such a way to be completely hilarious. It ended up solving a script issue of how these five men, Bond and the nine up ended up becoming the bonding scene because of some stinky farts.

Singer was originally frustrated, but the footage was genuinely funny. It showed the characters bonding and it still fit the idea of them being defiant to the police.

Cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel collaborated with Bryan Singer for the first time on the Usual Suspects.

The pair would work together again on X Men and X Men 2 Sigel's cinematography on the film, which is widely recognised as his career, best, developed into a way of shooting dialogue scenes with a combination of slow, creeping zooms and dolly moves that ended in tight close ups.

The use of darkness in the film is to accentuate the lowest points for each of the characters, and the imperceptible zooms always have a sense of motion in limited space.

While they were filming the climactic scene around the docks after dark, the authorities received an anonymous call saying there were either drugs or guns on the boat they were using, which was a 220 foot minesweeper once owned by the Kennedys. So the ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, raided the boat and shut down the movie.

One of the producers woke up the mayor and the production got permission to carry on.

This was a movie of incredible circumstance, but also incredible luck and privilege, because Bryan Singer had unprecedented freedom on this movie to not only make it exactly how he wanted to make it, but also make his final cut without any interference from anyone else. When you think of the usual suspects of this podcast, it's me, but also some other people too.

And this is the perfect time to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode, which is where I try and link the movie that I'm featuring with Keanu Reeves, which is sometimes really difficult, especially like it was for this, because the usual suspects of this podcast is me. And then next in the lineup is Keanu Reeves, followed by Keanu Reeves. Keanu Reeves and Keanu Reeves.

I'm not gonna say who farted in our lineup, though, but all I will say is I did eat baked beans that day. And yes, of course I fart in front of Keanu Reeves. He's the best of men. He's not gonna catch a couple of episodes.

I did an episode on Barbie and I talked about how the marketing for that movie was genuinely one of the greatest examples of modern marketing, how they utilize social media and how they utilize a press tour.

he Usual Suspects was back in: 1995

Posters appeared on bus stops and TV spots told people how to say the character's name. And so, of course, people started talking about a character called Keyser Soze and about who is this guy? Keyser Soze.

own out of Competition at the: 1995

August: 1995

September: 1995

It would end up grossing $23.3 million domestically in the US and $43.6 million internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $66.9 million, more than 10 times its original budget. It also has an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a consensus reading.

Expertly shot and edited, the Usual Suspects gives the audience a simple plot and then piles on layers of deceit, twists and violence before pulling out the rug from underneath. Roger Ebert, though, was one reviewer who didn't care much for the movie.

In a review for the Chicago Sun Times, he gave the film one and a half stars out of four, writing that it was confusing and uninteresting, quote, to the degree that I do understand, I don't care, unquote. He also included the film in his Most hated films list, but not many people agreed with him.

And at the 68 Academy Awards, Kevin Spacey won the Academy Award for Best Supporting actor and Christopher McQuarrie won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. In his acceptance speech, Spacey said, well, whoever Keyser Soze is, I can tell you he's gonna get gloriously drunk tonight.

While Spacey is undoubtedly the star of the movie, it's really only after the fact that you realize this. And so to save the twist from being spoiled for others, he campaigned for was nominated and won Best Supporting Actor rather than Best Actor.

The film also was nominated for a BAFTA for Best film and won two further BAFTAs, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing. Spacey was also nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe.

Heroes and Villains in June: 2003

No one could take it away. And Bryan Singer controls the rights of the usual suspects in perpetuity.

Which means nobody can make a sequel or a spin off without Singer's approval or involvement. And this was also an unprecedented deal that rarely happens in Hollywood.

But despite the movie telling us who Keyser Soze is, how much of the story can be believed? Did Soze make up the characters or the whole thing? Is he really Keyser Soze?

While the sketch artist does a pretty convincing Kevin Spacey lookalike sketch, so at least we know that's true. The visual reveal of the sketch being Keyser Soze is purely based on a description, but it's hard to deny it's not a description of Kevin Spacey.

The movie cleverly leaves pretty much everything else up for debate, apart from the fact that a character called Kobayashi probably doesn't look like Pete Postlethwaite, but then we know his name is definitely not Kobayashi from the Kobayashi porcelain mug.

ssault in several lawsuits in: 1997

ault and sexual harassment in: 2017

assault charges in London in: 2023

In: 2017

ollock would later confirm in: 2018

However, the history and legacy of this movie stands it apart from the behaviour of its lead actor and its director. I knew the twist going into this movie. It is one of the most famous twists in cinema history, but even knowing it doesn't reduce the experience.

It does make you question what you think you know. And it's a movie that benefits greatly from multiple viewings purely for that reason, obviously. It launched Bryan Singer into the stratosphere.

Oscar for American Beauty in: 1999

r and Spacey would reunite in: 2006

And also Cher's dad Dan Hedaya, who was originally going to play a character called Captain Leo until he was cut to save time. So instead he became Rabin. But mostly this is a movie that lives and dies on its marketing, and it became a video hit and a cult classic.

Former US President Bill Clinton was a huge fan, allegedly because his daughter Chelsea loved it. He apparently kept a copy on Air Force One. This was the millennial cult movie, a masterclass in suspension and misdirection.

And proof, if anyone needed, that a great marketing campaign can make or break a movie. Would we even know who Keyser Soze is without the marketing? And are we 100% certain that he is who we think he is?

But I guess that's the question this movie keeps asking us. Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the Usual Suspects. And thank you for your continued support of this podcast.

If you want to get involved and you want to help this podcast grow and reach more people, you could tell your friends and family. You can find me on social media at verbaldiorama, where you can like post, share posts, comment on posts, etc. It all helps.

Or you can leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast. The next episode of this podcast well, the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

Which is a line from this movie, but also kind of links into the next episode, which doesn't need an obligatory Keanu reference because it stars Keanu Reeves. It is one of my favorite Keanu Reeves performance actually.

And not only is Keanu Reeves great in the movie, he also goes up against the legendary Al Pacino. Please join me next episode on this podcast where I'm going to be talking about the history and legacy of the Devil's Advocate.

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You could also go to verbaldiorama.com and fill out the contact form. I would love to hear from you if you've enjoyed this episode.

If you want to talk about the usual suspects or you want to talk about any episode actually that I featured on this podcast, please feel free to get in touch. You can also get in touch with me on social media as well. As I mentioned, it's @Verbaldiorama and finally.

Em: 00:36:52

Bye.