'Usual Suspects' Question

C

Captain Murphy

250+ Posts
Okay, I've watched this movie a number of times now. I like the movie. It kicks ***. What I'm trying to figure out is, the root motivation of Kaiser Sose is to kill the one witness who can identify him, according to the police detective. Kaiser Sose hatches an elaborate plot to accomplish that objective. He succeeds in killing the witness, after assembling an all-star crew of assassins. Then, in the end, the police figure out who Kaiser Sose really is. Not only do they figure it out intellectually, their professional sketch artists produce a portrait that clearly resembles the cripple, thereby conclusively solving the case.

What has Kaiser gained? The police know more about him than ever. True, he has escaped their grasp, as the lone surviver of the assault on the ship. But the police know more about him now than they did before the assault on the ship, the whole purpose of which was to kill the one witness who could identify him.

Hard to see how, in the end, Kaiser has gained an edge over the authorities.
 
well, the plan was ingenius, had it worked to perfection.

in essence, the plan would:

-kill the witness
-kill a bunch of dudes trying to bring him down (drug competitors, whomever) by selling the witness
-kill a bunch of dudes who had stolen from him
-possibly destroy a ton of money crippling the gang?

unfortunately, the one dude in the hospital survived the bloodbath. oh, and unfortunately cujon is a smart dude.
 
Old MacDonald had a farm,
E-I-E-I-O...
And, on that farm he... shot some guys.
E-I-E-I-O...

Love that part.
 
I agree with first poster here, though I'd struggle to put it together so succintly.

It's like the ending of T2, they go through all that effort to kill the Schwartzenegger terminator, although there's pieces of terminator laying in a machine from about 10 minutes before the ending.
 
The edge he gains is that he can now flip them. He can flip them for real.
hookem.gif
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some of you guys are mixing up facts about the movie:

1. Verbal Kint (Kaizer Soze) believes all men at the port/on the ship were killed. Unbeknown to him, 1 man barely survived and is able to give police his identity and a sketch is made.
2. Agent Cujon figures out Verbal's story was a lie when the other detective says something about his desk being a mess, but it allows him to sit back and see the big picture. At that moment, Agent Cujon starts realizing all of Verbal's stories came from the papers/words on the board.

3. Agent Cujon never sees the sketch drawing that's faxes to the police station. After realizing Verbal's story was a lie, he runs down to exit area where Verbal picked up his watch, lighter, etc. While he's doing that, the sketch fax comes through and the black detective picks it up.
 
What does Kujan actually know? In fact, what do you actually know, as the viewer? You must assume that everything related by Kint is a lie. We know that everytime he was confronted with an inconsistancy he would change his story to account for it, but why assume that the revised story was even a version of the truth?

So the only things we can know are that "Verbal Kint" is a lie/liar, Dean Keaton was a bad guy and the dock worker believes that "Kint" was Söze. Certainly, Kevin Spacey's character (whoever he was) was a bad guy who was quick on his feet (ba'dum'dum), but does that mean he was Söze? Could he not just as easily have been someone cashing in on the fear that name brings?
 
The most important fact to know is this:

I'm telling you this guy is protected from up on high by the Prince of Darkness.

And poof. Just like that, he's gone.
 
Before you do me in, may I finish my business with Ms. Finneran?

What did you say?

Edie. Finneran. She's upstairs. No matter. Kill away, Mr. McManus.
 
Remember, most of what we see in the movie was told to us by Kevin Spacey's character(whoever he really was). It is probably all a lie, built to fit the circumstances on the boat. Just because he really wasn't Verbal, it doesn't mean he's Keyser Sose, all we know is that he is some sort of crime boss.
 
The only bit that bothers me is that the same actor plays both Soze's real life associate (guy who picks him up at the end) and the imaginary lawyer Kobayashi. Not really sure how to integrate that into the story.
 
Great comments and insights. I agree that everything Verbal/Kaiser says is suspect. And yes, I agree he could get facial surgery, diminishing the importance of the sketch. But Verbal was booked into the police station, so they have his fingerprints, too. Could he get surgery to change his fingerprints? I guess so, but that's a hell of a lot of trouble to have to go to.

Police all over the world will be looking for him now, what with the number of guys he killed. Still hard to see how Verbal/Kaiser has gained anything.

Unless ... what about the scene during the ship assault where the guy is opening up a wooden crate in the back of a van and the crate is full of cash? And then the guy (sorry, character's name eludes me) is whacked, presumably by Verbal/Kaiser.

Does Kobiyashi drive off with tens of millions of dollars after the boat assault? If so, then Verbal/Kaiser and Kobiyashi have certainly gained something.
 
Actually, Verbal never says that he killed Dean Keaton. He only says that he's "sure he's dead" and that he "saw him die". That's when Cujon says "prove it to me. Tell me every last detail". Then the manipulation really begins.

Anyway, Gandorf had it right. It's pretty simple.
 
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