The usual suspect

The Usual Suspects is a 1995 American neo-noir film written by Christopher McQuarrie and directed by Bryan Singer. The film tells the story of Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey), a small-time con man who is the subject of a police interrogation. He tells his interrogator, U.S. Customs Agent David Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), a convoluted story about events leading to a massacre and massive fire that have just taken place on a ship docked at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro Bay. Using flashback and narration, Verbal's story becomes increasingly complex as he tries to explain why he and his partners-in-crime were on the boat. The film, shot on a USD $6 million budget, originally began as nothing more than a title taken from a column in Spy magazine called "The Usual Suspects" after Claude Rains' line in Casablanca. Singer thought that it would be a good title for a film whose poster he and McQuarrie had come up with as the first visual idea. The Usual Suspects was shown out of competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival and then was initially released in few theaters, but received favorable reviews and was eventually given a wider release. McQuarrie won an Academy Award for the screenplay and Spacey won the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance.

The film starts with a slow opening, starting with the names of the production company, followed by the names of the actors in alphabetical order, which is unusual as they mainly go in order of appearance, or who's wages are biggest. The opening starts with a slow pan along the water, which is played on a loop. This creates a mood appropriate for the film - deliberately slow, showing it needs concentration. The film then goes straight into an extreme close up, followed by a zoom out into a medium shot, revealing a mystery figure. The usual suspect begins to question: who's vision of events is this?, towards the beginning of the film.

There is a lot of low key lighting and non diegetic sounds, of footsteps, a voice is also disguised to show that the audience are still in the dark about whats happening. We then discover that Verbal, is the one talking about a man called Kasier Soze, and opens thoughts over whether Keaten is still alive or not. The audience has formed an attachment to Keaten, so his killing isn't shown. This could also be because he may be Kaiser Soze.

We then have a dissolve to Verbal in court, with the spotlight on him. There is also an overlapping between shots. As well as bluent representation with the police dressed in suits, and the casualness of the work men. It also shows that the police lack respect for others, due to them pointing guns in their faces. There is also non-diegetic sound, as the convicts are introduced, music is played, for example Latino music is played, which suggests a latino person is about to enter. Keatens introduction is longer than anyone elses showing he is the most critical person. Low angle shots represent authority looking down on keaton, as if looking down in ashame, the next shot is then a over the head shot to represent looking down in judgement. Only one camera was used.

The usual suspect was a low budget film, so it was low on special effects and explosions due to the lack of funds.

This is a good film to study, as the director and producer produced a succesfull film with small funding. Which is what the brief states for both our preliminary piece and our final piece.