The Usual Suspects

Soderbergh, S. (Producer), & Grant, S. (Writer). (2000). Erin Brockovich [Motion picture]. United States: Paramount

Movies have the ability to transport people to different times and places and distract them from ordinary everyday reality. They allow for a range of emotions to be experienced. At their core, movies examine the human condition. There are plenty of deeper truths woven into screenplays and plenty of lessons to be learned, even when an individual is solely seeking entertainment.

“The biggest mistake we have made is to consider that films are primarily a form of entertainment. The film is the greatest medium since the invention of movable type for exchanging ideas and information, and it is no more at its best in light entertainment than literature is at its best in the light novel.” - Orson Welles

The chief prosecutor, Joseph Holt, is played by Danny Huston, whose silken baritone and crooked smile are so immediately indicative of duplicity that the filmmakers might as well have cast a talking snake. Colm

To define a film by a certain genre, there are several elements and signatures that a film will display in order to signify its place amongst the genre. A film from the gangster genre is characterized by violence and lawlessness of american capitalism and The American Dream. The short lived classical era of the gangster genre in Hollywood is also greatly influenced by the production code which manifested the iconic moral narrative of the gangster genre. William A. Wellman’s 1931 film The Public Enemy can be considered a film of the gangster genre when one examines the conflict with the American dream, the rise and fall of the protagonist Tom Powers, as well as the visual storytelling employed to support the narrative.

The film The Usual Suspects has all of the qualities of being a film noir movie, like Double Indemnity and L.A. Confidential. A modern film can still be identified as a film noir movie. I think that if it has everything that qualifies to be one it can. The Usual Suspects has the typical element that every film noir has, which is crime. Along with The Usual Suspects, the other movies that have crime are Double Indemnity and L.A. Confidential.

    Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.

The 1995 film The Usual Suspects directed by Bryan Singer demonstrates the lifestyle of criminals whose decisions caused an explosion at the San Pedro Harbor, killing many men with few survivors. As police gather evidence about a recent explosion in the harbor, con man Roger Kint tells the US Customs agent the events that led up to the explosion. He starts his story when he and four other men, Fenster, Keaton, McManus, and Hockney, were in a line-up, then stuck in a cell together while waiting for bail. These men decide to plan a job to get revenge on the cops. All goes well until the mythical Keyser Söze becomes in charge of these men.

Films and movies hold much than we can guess, they reveal a lot of vices and rots that are happening in society. Others give a history of a particular society, its beliefs, culture and their standard of living in the society. Films are used to disclose the social responsibilities in a given season and customs, moral values, societal worries and other cultural practices.

When it was released in 1995, The Usual Suspects was hailed as original, inventive, and, most of all, unpredictable. Having now seen this movie well over a dozen times, I can say that its impact is just as powerful today as it was the first time I saw it. In what I consider to be the best movie-making year of all-time, The Usual Suspects nonetheless distinguishes itself from everything else, offering a fresh take on the mystery and suspense genre.

Comment: I found this film very tough going- it is undoubtedly a well made film and has some clever and quirky moments. However I lost interest around halfway through the film and could not engage with the film and its clunky style. A lighter touch would have made a huge difference to the viewing experience. Perhaps as an artistic statement it deserves more than three stars but as a movie going experience it was only a little bit better than average.

Final thoughts, overall I really liked it. Was it a masterpiece? No, of course not as few films are. But it was entertaining and I don't consider watching a complete waste of time. The visuals are nice, the pacing is solid and it has a great dread location that is dripping with atmosphere. Would I recommend it? Yes, I just recommend going into with an open mind and a six-pack.

Literature can, at times, have a fascinating connection with film. Whether it is a film or a piece of literature, both are written by someone that wants to leave an impact on an audience. However, movies and books have different roles. They each have different strong points wherein books give better characterization, stronger revelations, and inner conflict, but movies create a better mood with music and visuals, showing much more emotion. It's a totally different kind of experience, of course, and there are a number of differences between the book and the movie. The novel of 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke, for example, attempts to explain things much more explicitly than the film does, which is inevitable in a verbal medium. The movie version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, directed by Stanley Kubrick, on the other hand, is essentially a visual, nonverbal experience. It avoids intellectual verbalization and reaches the viewer's subconscious in a way that is essentially poetic and philosophic. The film thus becomes a subjective experience, which hits the viewer at an inner level of consciousness, just as music does, or painting. Utilizing its verbal medium, Clarke is able to explain his narrative, whereas Kubrick creates a visual and audial experience, through means of ambiguity, in which the viewer sees everything, is told nothing, and in which one cannot detect the presence of the film as one at all.

In this essay I decided to watch the movie Scarface (1932). This movie is directed by Howard Hawks and Richard Rosson. Its lead actors are Osgood Perkins, Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, and Karen Morley. Scarface is a film about guns, gangsters, and pretty woman, it follows a story of a fast rising gangster who lives by the moto the world is yours, but once he finds himself at the top he is quick to find his world is tumbling down around him.

The film Sicario, directed by Denis Villeneuve in 2015 was classified as an American crime-thriller drama that starred Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, and Josh Brolin. The film Sicario (2015) was written by Taylor Sheridan.