YMMV / The Usual Suspects

• Alternative Character Interpretation: There isn't much evidence that Verbal Kint is Keyser Söze that doesn't come from the movie's Unreliable Narrator. Because of how much we don't know about what happened, it's quite possible that he's just a conman trading on the name and reputation of a legendary crime lord to get what he wants.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The emeralds the crew steal in their initial heist look like cheap costume jewelry. They were actually real emeralds loaned to the filmmakers from a bank.
• Ass Pull: One of the more common criticisms of the film is that there's very little concrete foreshadowing that most of Kint's story is completely fabricated, leading to the climactic twist effectively coming out of nowhere. Understandably, this leads some viewers feeling shortchanged for bothering to pay close attention to the details of Kint's story, since it ultimately turns out that none of it really matters.
• Awesome Music: The score by John Ottman.
• Designated Hero: David Kujan. He’s rude, condescending, abusive, and borderline corrupt. Granted, he’s dedicated to his job and wants to make sure the case is solved properly, but you really couldn’t tell him from the criminals he’s trying to put in prison. Yes, Verbal is lying through his teeth about everything, but Kujan’s actions — which include strong-arming him, threatening to plant false evidence on him, and of course, vowing to put a contract on his life if he doesn’t tell him the truth — were very excessive. In the end you can’t help but feel a little bit happy that Kujan got taken down a huge peg as Verbal/Keyser Söze gets away scot-free.
• Designated Love Interest: Edie and Keaton to each other. Verbal is the only person in the whole movie who seems to believe they cared for each other, even though Edie doesn't seem to be all that fazed by Keaton's complete disappearance from her life, and Keaton ignores essentially all attempts at connection from his girlfriend.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Bryan Singer mentioned in more than one article that Benicio del Toro took a throw-away character and, just by giving him an unusual way of speaking, stole every scene he was in!
• Evil Is Cool: Keyser Söze is clearly a monstrously evil man if even half of the things said about him are true, but his coolness in doing them is indisputable, particularly given the famous twist ending has made him a by-word for the Diabolical Mastermind.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Several times Söze is referred to as the Devil. The main character (and one of the prime suspects as to who Söze is) later played the Devil in End of Days. One of his minions in the latter is played by "Hockney" (Kevin Pollak).
  • The Hungarian whom Jack Baer is interrogating has half his face bandaged from severe burns. Baer is played by Giancarlo Esposito, whose character Gus Fring in Breaking Bad dies in an explosion that blows off half of his face.
• It Was His Sled: Practically everyone, with or without seeing the movie, has heard of the twist.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Keyser Söze is a mysterious Diabolical Mastermind who lives a double life as the disabled Roger "Verbal" Kint. Söze organized a hit on a drug gang to kill one of their prisoners before killing his accomplices and setting fire to the scene. Arrested by the police, Söze, as Kint, successfully spun lies to the investigators to pin everything on accomplice Dean Keaton. Once he got his bail, Söze practically waltzed out the police station and vanished before the investigators could realize the truth. For years, Söze has kept his own existence under wraps, and those who know of his existence know nothing else about him.
  • In the fake story that Verbal sells to Kujan, Mr. Kobayashi is Keyser Söze's Lawyer and main spokesperson. First tricking the five co-conspirators into robbing a heroin dealer, he then states they have unwittingly stolen from Söze, and they are now to repay their debts. When they remain incredulous he blackmails them with all their previous criminal activities. When they later hold him at gunpoint, he remains calm, and reveals he has their loved ones in his sights, giving them no choice to but to continue the job. Even in the end when the story is revealed to be a fabrication, the real Kobayashi is seen to be Söze's driver, showing that Söze implicitly trusts him.
• Memetic Badass: Keyser Söze, but then again, with a reputation like his, the title is downright inevitable.
• Memetic Mutation: "And just like that, he's gone," referring to Kevin Spacey's sudden fall from grace in 2017.
• Nightmare Fuel: The sheer Nothing Is Scarier reputation Keyser Söze has. It scares almost every criminal in the film.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Clark Gregg has a bit part as a doctor at the San Pedro hospital. He would break through later as Agent Coulson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
  • Giancarlo Esposito was already a fairly prolific character actor by the time he played Jack Baer, but he's now far better known to and recognized by the general public after roles such as Gus Fring of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, Moff Gideon in The Mandalorian, and Stan Edgar on The Boys.
• Shocking Moments: While sadly watered down by It Was His Sled since its release, The Reveal that Verbal Kint is Keyser Söze made every first-time viewer’s jaw drop straight to the floor.
• Signature Scene:
  • The line-up, to the point it's the movie poster and the Vanity Plate for Bryan Singer's company.
  • The scene where Kujan begins realizing that everything Verbal told him is either partially or wholly untrue, just a little too late for him to stop or catch Verbal.
• Tough Act to Follow: While Bryan Singer would go on to have great success directing blockbusters (most notably the X-Men Film Series), none of his films would be as highly acclaimed as this.

---