The Usual Suspects (1995) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction
Added 2025-07-19 04:30:01 +0000 UTCThanks for voting for this one in the Random Sub-2h Movies poll! I really hope you enjoy my reaction! 😊
I'm looking forward to your comments. Please enjoy! [Direct link here.]
✦ KL
Comments
Thanks for the info Bob! Wow, investigating public corruption.. that sounds like both a very stressful but also very rewarding career.
kaiielle
2025-08-01 23:04:23 +0000 UTCkaiielle, as you noted, Verbal/Keyser is the most unreliable of unreliable narrators. Aside from the robbery of the truck in Queens and the subsequent line-up, we have no way of knowing what, if anything, we’re told/shown is true. We know that the “New York’s Finest Taxi Service” must’ve been robbed because that would have made a huge splash in the papers. But we have no way of knowing whether our usual suspects were responsible or Verbal/Keyser simply wove that story into the larger narrative as he did so much else. Same goes for the robbery/murders in the garage. We don’t even really know that Verbal is Keyser. It could’ve been a ghost story told by criminals and he simply adopted the background as his own as a way of intimidating others. My personal take is that most of the story is probably true. I worked for more than twenty years investigating public corruption and I’ve been involved in a lot of admission-seeking interviews. My experience was that, when lying, people instinctively weave as much of the truth into their story as they can. It gives them less to have to remember later. On a final note, I don’t know if you noticed, but they clearly identify Hockney as the person responsible for the truck jacking that led to the police line-up. If you remember, Kujan mentioned to Verbal/Keyser that you could always tell the guilty party in a jail cell because they knew they were caught and try to get some sleep. In the scene in the jail cell after the line-up, Hockney is laying down on the bench, arm over his eyes, trying to sleep. Only the chatter of the others interrupts him. Far more telling is their initial meeting with Kobayashi. He lists each of their infractions against Keyser, letting them know why they were chosen. He explicitly states that Hockney robbed the truck in Queens. If you re-watch the scene, the others give him a look and he responds with a little shrug, like “what do you want from me, I’m a thief, how was I supposed to know it would lead to this.” I’ve loved this movie for almost thirty years, ever since I first saw it. It’s very near the top of my personal “you gotta see this” list when I meet other cinephiles. Loved your reaction and was gratified to see that the twist ending still holds up (twist endings have become much more popular in the years since the movie was released). Anyway, very fun reaction and I look forward to many more.
Just Plain Bob
2025-08-01 22:47:16 +0000 UTCI'd read the scripts for pulp fiction and reservoir dogs before I saw them; this was the first movie I saw where I was like "what the fuck just happened"
Rob Stanley
2025-07-25 21:25:33 +0000 UTCI actually love to rewatch this. It was too stressful first time round, it's kind of peaceful now because it's a bit slow, beautifully shot. McQuarrie, the writer, is Tom Cruise's writer/director now. He's done every mission impossible for the last ten years, wrote Maverick, etc etc.
Rob Stanley
2025-07-25 21:23:12 +0000 UTC
