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Title: What's the Fuss?
Review: Part of the 'cult' appeal of this film, I'm fairly sure, lies in its trick ending. This is all very well, but it's not a trick ending in the sense that it provides any clue to preceding events. This reduces it to nonsense. The Usual Suspects is well acted, though shoddily filmed, clearly low-budget and cringingly self conscious. The premise itself - five criminals rounded up by a character who may or may not be Kaiser Szoze to commit a crime that we are never sure was actually committed - is the stuff of graduate film school. It's clever, but finally not clever enough. If you're going to take the best part of two hours to play an elaborate hoax, make sure the hoax is worth waiting for. This isn't. Don't give youself a headache trying to figure out what the ending really means. It doesn't mean anything at all. This, apparently, is Bryan Singer's 'trick' on his audience. Let's hope that Bryan is quite finished.
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