Product Description

Gabriel Byrne, Kevin Spacey. This suspenseful drama centers on five petty criminals who meet in a jail lineup and agree to work for a mysterious crime lord. But was it all a setup from the beginning? 1995/color/106 min/R.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13882 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2007-02-13
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Subtitled
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: English, French, Spanish
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.com
Ever since this convoluted thriller dazzled audiences and critics in 1995 and won an Oscar for Christopher McQuarrie's twisting screenplay, The Usual Suspects has continued to divide movie lovers into opposite camps. While a lot of people take great pleasure from the movie's now-famous central mystery (namely, "Who is Keyser Söze?"), others aren't so easily impressed by a movie that's too enamored of its own cleverness to make much sense. After all, what are we to make of a final scene that renders the entire movie obsolete? Half the fun of The Usual Suspects is the debate it provokes and the sheer pleasure of watching its dynamic cast in action, led (or should we say, misled) by Oscar winner Kevin Spacey as the club-footed con man who recounts the saga of enigmatic Hungarian mobster Keyser Söze. Spacey's in a band of thieves that includes Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, and Benicio Del Toro, all gathered in a plot to steal a large shipment of cocaine. The story is told in flashback as a twisted plot being described by Spacey's character to an investigating detective (Chazz Palmintieri), and The Usual Suspects is enjoyable for the way it keeps the viewer guessing right up to its surprise ending. Whether that ending will enhance or extinguish the pleasure is up to each viewer to decide. Even if it ultimately makes little or no sense at all, this is a funny and fiendish thriller, guaranteed to entertain even its vocal detractors. --Jeff Shannon

From The New Yorker
In a season of fat blockbusters, a picture as brainy, bitter, and compact as this one comes as a shock and a treat. Five criminals, ranging from petty to pro, are herded into a police lineup on suspicion of armed robbery. They walk, but not before joining forces to plan a new crime-a bright idea that soon darkens with treachery and ends in a bulk order of dead bodies. Director Bryan Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie somehow keep from getting lost in the spiralling plot, which revels in rumors and flashbacks and the ominous feeling that they're being engineered by one man; the film is both a hunt for his identity and a game in which everyone-the good, the bad, and the audience-gets to play sucker. Singer's style may overheat now and then, but his cast, headed by Chazz Palminteri and Kevin Spacey, keeps things cool. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker