THE IMDB TOP 50 CHALLENGE #26 The Usual Suspects

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist. And like that... he's gone."

There was a time in the mid-nineties when films weren’t films unless they contained a twist. At the forefront of this was M Night Shyamalan, whose magnificent Sixth Sense heralded a succession of movies in which the director eschewed basic storytelling and drama in favour of ‘the twist’. This law of diminishing returns has now led to Shyamalan directing garbage like The Last Airbender. Oh dear.

The film which started this trend remains the very best of the bunch: The Usual Suspects. Bryan Singer’s tightly plotted thriller features a wonderful ensemble cast clearly having the time of their lives, secure in the knowledge that the end product would be one of the greatest crime capers ever made.

Beginning with a line-up which brings together a disparate group of crooks and low-lifes, with each of the characters forced to deliver the line, “hand me the keys, you cocksucker”. The scene was completely improvised and the cast are obviously having a blast as they interpret and reinterpret the line, corpsing and cussing their way through one of nineties cinema’s most memorable scenes.

The line-up is, of course, a contrivance to get the characters together. Told in flashback, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) is grilled by Chazz Palminteri’s police investigator Dave Kujan about an inferno which left a boat burned out with twenty seven charred bodies on board. Kujan is convinced that one of the bodies of that of his nemesis Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a cop turned criminal who Kujan desperately wants to see dead.

Kint relays the tale of their meeting (the line-up) and plot to rip off a fortune in gems from New York’s Finest Taxi Service – actually a cabal of crooked city cops. Those involved are the laconic Keaton, sociopathic McManus (Stephen Baldwin), incomprehensible Fenster (Benicio Del Toro) and sarcastic Hockney (Kevin Pollak). There is more to the heist than first appears, however, and soon the quintet are being pressured, bumped off and double crossed by the brains behind the operation – the shadowy Keyser Soze.

The Usual Suspects crams an incomprehensible amount into its compact running time. Every character is superbly drawn and acted (the memorable Fenster sticks in the mind vividly despite only being on screen for a few minutes) and credit must be given to the ensemble cast. But the real star here is Singer’s skill in telling Christopher McQuarrie’s deftly plotted script.

To say too much is to nullify The Usual Suspect’s greatest strengths – not a mistake I’ll make here. Suffice to say that the film is one of cinema’s greatest ever puzzles and ends with a moment that will genuinely cause you to catch your breath, blink and then re-evaluate everything you’ve just seen. Alfred Hitchcock couldn’t have done a better job of filming this masterful masterpiece of a movie: praise indeed.

THE IMDB TOP 50 CHALLENGE #29 Se7en

Serial killers and violent slashers have been a staple of Hollywood for so long that they’ve become hackneyed, clichéd and, quite frankly, dull. There are only so many times an audience can watch the same plot rehashed, the same killers recycled and the same deaths re-enacted. Praise the lord, then, for Se7en – without question the greatest serial killer movie of all time.

In one key way, Se7en subverts our expectations of the genre: we are given no clue about the killer’s identity. The audience is never asked or expected to identify him and are never given a glimpse of him at work. Instead, we are provided with another mystery to solve: how will he kill next?

Selecting his victims so that he might punish them for committing the seven deadly sins (gluttony, sloth, pride, envy, lust, greed and wrath), the killer constructs elaborate crime scenes and creative deaths: gluttony sees a fat man chained to a table and forced to eat pasta sauce until his stomach ruptures, sloth involves the near mummification of a victim tied to his bed for a year and kept barely alive.

The killer (unimaginatively christened John Doe) is methodical, intelligent and patient – everything that happens in Se7en is part of a masterplan which culminates in one of the most brilliantly plotted twists ever. Anyone who second-guessed the film’s ending is a liar or a genius. Or a sociopathic murderer.

Hints at Doe’s state of mind are provided in the finest title sequence I’ve ever seen. Featuring the construction of his notebooks, Fincher had a team working tirelessly to produce genuine artefacts of hand-written scrawls, psychotic outpourings and horrifying images of torture and disfigurement. This filmed process is truly horrifying.

Although John Doe’s murders belong strictly in the present day, everything else about Se7en is decidedly old-fashioned. The central relationship between Brad Pitt’s impetuous young cop, Mills, and Morgan Freeman’s weary Somerset has been seen a thousand times. But their dynamic is crucial: Mill’s hot-headedness is just as important as Somerset’s intelligent understanding of Doe’s literary references to the likes of Milton, Chaucer and the Bible.

The set design and costume also belong to a bygone era. Cops wear trenchcoats and carry flashlights, phones are attached to walls, furniture is heavy and wooden, the rain never stops pouring. When light, colour and modernity impinge on proceedings it’s usually to illustrate the gaudy nature of Doe’s killings and the perceived sins of his victims.

To say much more would be to destroy Se7en’s power. There are too many surprises which could be spoilt, too many creative touches which could be ruined. Be warned that Se7en is not a film for the faint hearted and occasionally requires a strong stomach. But the gruesome nature of its crime scenes is not exploitative or gratuitous. Rather, they are an insight into a twisted and warped mindset and a crucial part of drawing the audience into a highly original and intelligent horror movie which remains unrivalled sixteen years after its original release.

IMDB TOP 50 CHALLENGE #44 American Beauty

As the millennium approached, it seemed that Hollywood suffered an existential crisis. Masculinity came under attack (and was reclaimed) in Fight Club, Tom Cruise ordered us to ‘worship the cock’ in Magnolia and American Beauty documented one man’s mid-life meltdown.

That man is Lester Burnham (a career-best turn from Kevin Spacey), an increasingly irrelevant figure in his own life. Completely ignored by his own wife, unloved by his daughter and largely unnecessary at work, Lester informs us from the outset that he’ll ‘be dead in a year’. American Beauty tells the inevitable tale of his tragi-comic demise.

It’s little wonder Lester is so disillusioned with life. His busty daughter Jane (Thora Birch) obsessively saves for a boob-job whilst his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening) carries on an increasingly obvious and badly concealed affair. They both believe Lester to be a loser and, whilst people in glass houses should never throw stones, they are completely correct.

Still, they present a united front to the world while they slowly unravel – until the day Lester falls head over heels for Angela (Mena Suvari). Unfortunately for all concerned, Angela is Jane’s teenage school-friend. It’s a lust which leads to a complete character change for Lester as he yearns for his lost youth, respect and of course, beauty.

American Beauty is not a story of paedophilia or illegality. It’s not even a story about a relationship between an older man and a younger woman. Rather, Angela serves as both catalyst and muse as Lester re-invents himself the way he’d like to be. The thought of her is enabling – and watching Spacey’s portrayal of a man who has ceased to give a fuck is extremely good fun.

Often Spacey’s characters have been introverted or even cold. Here, he cuts loose and imbues Lester with a passion, vitality and joie de vivre which is almost contagious. Who hasn’t wanted to tell their boss to fuck themselves at some point? Lester goes further and throws in a $60,000 ransom demand – which he then spunks on a vintage sports car.

Of course, Lester’s droll voiceover has already revealed the tragic denouement, which is bound up in a parallel storyline: that of dreamy Ricky and his homophobic father. Ricky is embroiled in a strange relationship with Jane, Lester spends time getting physical in his garage, Ricky’s dad is a repressed ex-Marine prone to violent outbursts and, inevitably, these factors always look likely to combine and combust.

It’s strange to describe a film about a man’s emotional breakdown as a comedy – and stranger still that it turns out to be a feel-good film. In the end, though, Kevin Spacey’s performance is so charismatic and full of vigour that he lifts elevates the whole endeavour – and the cast assembled around him give excellent supporting performances too. Highly recommended.