This is my favorite kind of movie. The “Who dun it” kind.
Plot: “A boat has been destroyed, criminals are dead, and the key to this mystery lies with the only survivor and his twisted, convoluted story beginning with five career crooks in a seemingly random police lineup.”
I don’t know what’s best about this movie… the fact that Kevin Spacey is in it or the tiny hints you get along the way. If you don’t see them you’ll get a huge “OOOOOH!” experience at the end of the movie. The actors in this movie are just great, but since Kevin is one of my favorite actors I say that he out played them all.
After reading what Kevin Spacey did to get into the role of a man with CP, to make it believable (everything from gluing his fingers together to filing his shoes down to simulate wear and tare), one gets how much the man loves acting.
One last thing… HERE BE SPOILERS!!
The movie starts off with a guy lighting a cigarette and letting the Zippo fall to the floor where a line of petrol is waiting to get lit. As the flames travel across the floor it is stopped by someone taking pissing on it, putting out the flames. The pissing person then walks over to the smoking guy on the floor and towers over him. They exchange a few words before the pissing guy shoots the other guy and then drops his cigarette on the floor while walking away. The boat, where the floor was located, gets blown up.
We then cut to a police station where a man is being interrogated about the explosion, and he tells the story about how everything got started at a line up.
We then jump a few weeks back and hear the guy tell a story about a truck being hijacked and how someone was less than pleased about it. The police then start to arrest… the usual suspects. They all end up in the line up where they have to say “hand me the keys, you fucking cocksucker”.
(I feel the need to say that the movie is riddled with bad language, so if you’re faint of heart, DO NOT WATCH THIS FUCKING MOVIE! The word fuck and its derivatives is used a total of 98 times.)
They are then put in a holding cell while waiting for a lawyer. While waiting they are talking amongst themselves about who actually did the hijacking and so on, and they are somewhat introduced to each other.
McManus (Stephen Baldwin)
Fenster (Benicio Del Toro)
Hockney (Kevin Pollack)
Keaton (Gabriel Byrne)
‘Verbal’ Kint (Kevin Spacey)
Keaton has his wife, the lawyer, come down and get him out, so the rest of them are set free too. Later Verbal comes to see him about a job McManus suggested, to hit “New York’s Finest Taxi service”, a taxi service which brings smugglers etc. from one place to the next for a small fee. Verbal wants in on it, cause he needs the money, but Keaton wants none of it seeing as he no longer has anything to do with crime. But Verbal manages to talk Keaton into it, and so they hit the police car which is servicing a guy from somewhere bringing emeralds into the country.
A few police men are fired, the mess leads all the way up to police captains and the guys are very pleased with themselves.
McManus tells the rest of the guys, after having checked out the loot, that he has to go to Los Angeles to talk to a guy who’ll process the loot. The guys don’t like it and they tag along. There they are offered another job, to lift a suitcase off a guy. Keaton doesn’t like it. He only went along with one job. He doesn’t want to get dragged into another one. But eventually they do that job too. Verbal, who’s a “no killings, please” guy ends up killing the guy with the suitcase cause he doesn’t want to part with it. In the suitcase they find cocaine. (The whole time Verbal is being interrogated he brings up stories about his past life. And the Federal Agent who’s interviewing him, Kujan, keeps pushing Verbal into telling the story. Verbal, on the other hand, keeps dropping hints…)
After having seen the guy who processed the loot from the taxi service they go back to their lair… or hotel room… This is when a guy called Kobayashi turns up. Apparently he’s Japanese, although, in my ears, he sounds more Indian than Japanese.
He starts telling them that they all have done many bad things, all involving his boss, Keyser Soze, and that if they aren’t to meet a horrible death, they should all do one last job. They might die anyway, but at least they have a choice to die now or later. They then get one envelope each, with their names on it, containing their whole criminal life.
Not knowing who Keyser Soze is Verbal asks the rest who he is. He gets told a story about how he was a German/Turkish guy who was really large in the criminal world, that some people wanted his power and that Keyser killed his whole family because…
The next day Fenster turned up dead. He took the rest of the money the guys had scraped together and legged it, but he didn’t get far. So Keaton tried another strategy. They show Kobayashi that he’s not the only one who can get at people. But Kobayashi has an ace up his sleeve. He tells them that if they don’t do the job or something, they will lose one family member… or one of them will lose something dear to them… like testicles…
In the meantime the police have found a guy who survived the ship blowing up, and he is flailing in bed, screaming about Keyser Soze, which gets some attention. They get a sketch artist in to make a drawing and so on.
Verbal is still telling Kujan about how they did the job Keyser wanted them to do, even though none of the guys thought there was a Keyser Soze, that he was only a fairy tail. And they are talking about how real Keyser is. Kujan doesn’t seem to believe there is a Keyser either.
The job they are to do is to hit a boat to find cocaine. But on the boat, after killing loads of Turkish people, they find nothing. While Keaton and McManus are on the boat, Hockney gets killed. Also an old guy on the boat gets killed. Turns out he’s the only guy who can tell anyone who Keyser Soze really is.
After figuring out there is no cocaine, Keaton runs up on deck, where a bemused McManus walks towards him and then collapses, with a knife in his back. Then Keaton gets shot. All of this happens while Verbal watches.
Suddenly Kujan explodes on Verbal, telling him he doesn’t believe he could just let Keyser go without even trying to shot him. That if Keaton really was his friend, he’d help him. No, in fact, Keaton was Keyser, wasn’t he? And that was why Verbal was still alive. And the fact that Verbal was a cripple. That was the only reason why Verbal was alive.
All of his loud words make Verbal think and cry. Why would Keaton try to save him? Because he was weak? (ugh, too much back and forth with these two)
Kujan wants to help Verbal too, to save him, because they both know that as soon as Verbal hits the streets Keyser will snatch him up. But Verbal wants to chance it. He leaves the office with the wonderful words “fucking cops”
As Verbal is hobbling down to where he can get his stuff, Kujan is drinking his coffee, watching the board on the wall, realizing that every story Verbal told was picked from there. He drops his mug, revealing a name under the cup: KOBAYASHI!
Kujan then jumps to his feet and runs after Verbal, just as a fax comes through from the hospital where the sketch artist is done. One of the cops look at the drawing and it’s… VERBAL KINT!
Verbal/Keyser is now hobbling down the street, on camera only his feet are showing, but the longer he walks, the more normal his walk get. Eventually the camera pan up his legs and you see his hand, he pulls his fingers apart, pick up a pack of cigarettes and light a smoke. A car stops next to him; Kobayashi is sitting in the driver’s seat. As Kujan is looking frantically left and right to spot Keyser, they drive off. End of movie.