The Ritual Suspects Analysis

The Usual Suspects, directed by Bryan Singer, exposed to its audience in a plot twist ending, that it was most “unusual” suspect who was “the devil”. A character branded as stupid and crippled with the “wounded innocence of a kid who ate all the cookies” was revealed to be Keyser Soze, the character in the film who kills his own kids and wife to show the mob who is in control (Ebert). Wickedly, he also killed members of the mob and their kids, parents, and friends; burned down their houses; and murdered people who owed them money. The director strategically distracts the audience by framing the story of usual suspects in an intricate narrative attempting to discover the identity of the unknown psychopath, Soze; transforming the usual suspect, …show more content…
In the same way, in the end of the film when it is revealed who Keyser Soze is; the audience knows who, but is left to question how it was convinced that Verbal wasn’t Soze, and what that means. Barbara Shulgasser, in her review of “The Usual suspects” stated that the plot “may all sound tortuously incomprehensible, but it all makes a kind of magical sense…Logic is less the issue than satiny style, and McQuarrie and Singer and their talented cast all have style to spare.” On the other hand, another reviewer, Roger Ebert, wasn’t feeling the “magic” in the complex plot. In his review, he states that "To the degree that I do understand, I don't care.” Then, further into his review, he wrote that “It was, however, somewhat reassuring at the end of the movie to discover that I had, after all, understood everything I was intended to understand.” The film lies to the audience; it almost tricks them, to understand only what they were supposed to. While two reviewers identify this concept in their reviews, Robert disregards the effectiveness of the director’s style in captivating the audience and overlooks why the author purposefully framed the story this way; thus, Barbara’s review more accurately deciphers the authors style and purpose in the …show more content…
The intricate plot functions as a diversion to overlook what is literally in front of the audience the entire movie. Furthermore, Robert stated in his review that “the "solution," when it comes, solves little - unless there is really little to solve, which is also a possibility”. He acknowledges what the author was trying to do; but neglects why the author framed it this way. Specifically, if the plot wasn’t perplexingly complex; the movie would lose its “magic”; the “usual suspects” would be a “usual”, easily predictable movie. Likewise, the movie is told in “Verbal’s” protagonist point of view; yet he can also be regarded as the antagonist of the film since verbal is revealed to be Soze at the end of the film. By crafting the “Verbal” character as the protagonist, the audience is rooting for him as the “moral” character and this instinctively shifts the focus to the other character’s as potential suspects for the role of ultimate villain in the film. This sustains the audience’s attention because they are focused on piecing together the meticulously few details provided for characters such as