The Usual Suspects

• Cat.no: 047 806 2
• Cert: 18
• Running time: 101 minutes
• Year: 1995
• Pressing: 1998
• Region(s): Code-free!
• Chapters: 19 plus extras
• Sound: MPEG Stereo
• Languages: English, French, Spanish
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Dutch
• Fullscreen: 4:3
• 16:9-enhanced: No
• Macrovision: Yes
• Price: £17.99
• Extras : Scene index, Theatrical trailer, Biographies, Filmographies.

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Director:

Bryan Singer

(Public Access)

Producer:

Screenplay:

Christopher McQuarrie (Public Access)

Music:

Cast:

McManus: Stephen Baldwin (Born On The Fourth Of July, Last Exit To Brooklyn, Fled)
Keaton: Gabriel Byrne (Into The West, The Assassin (aka Point Of No Return), Miller’s Crossing)
Fenster: Benicio Del Toro (The Fan, Basquiat, Excess Baggage, Swimming With Sharks)
Hockney: Kevin Pollak (Ricochet, Casino, A Few Good Men)
Verbal: Kevin Spacey (Swimming With Sharks, L.A. Confidential, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil)
Agent David Kujan: Chazz Palminteri (Diabolique, Bullets Over Broadway, Mulholland Falls)
Kobayashi: Pete Postlethwaite (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Brassed Off, Dragonheart)
Edie Finneran: Suzy Amis (The Ballad Of Little Jo, Blown Away)
Jack Baer: Giancarlo Esposito (Night On Earth, Fresh, Nothing To Lose)
Jeff Rabin: Dan Hedaya (Daylight, Fair Game, Blood Simple)

The Usual Suspectstells the story of five criminals brought togetherin a framed line-up, with 27 bodies turning up in Long Beach Habour and a potof money worth $91 million. There’s a terrified witness dying in hospital, whocan’t say too much but mentions the name “Keyser Soze”. Is he a mysteriouscriminal overlord with a reign of terror, or the devil himself? Agent DavidKujan is hell-bent on unraveling the truth.

This film proved itself to be one of the few great films of 1995, winningKevin Spacey the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, with both an Oscar and aBAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay going to Christopher McQuarrie.

If you’re after a film with strong acting, then you couldn’t do better thanthis one. The five men lined-up to be stitched-up Stephen Baldwin, GabrielByrne, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak and Kevin Spacey each havetheir own character to play, but it’s Spacey as the crippled Verbal Kint, knownas Verbal because he talks too much…and usually to the wrong people, whoshines through as the best and deserved his Oscar. Recently, he has alsoappeared in Clint Eastwood’s Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Eviland should have won another Oscar for his perfect performance in Curtis Hanson’sL.A. Confidential.

Chazz Palminteri is also very good as Agent Kujan, the detective incharge of getting to the truth of the matter, with good support from fellowdetectives Dan Hedaya and Giancarlo Esposito. Finally, theubiquitous Pete Postlethwaite appears as Kobayashi, the man who bringsthe chance of a lifetime to the famous five, tempting them with a $91 millionoffer.

The picture quality is first-class in most of the scenes on this disc. Theonly places I could pick out faults were in some scenes with little or nomovement where artifacts would appear, one prime example being a cityscape shotat the start of chapter 9.

The film is only presented in fullscreen which is a shame as it looked terrificin its original 2.35:1 ratio. On a positive note, Bryan Singer shot the filmin the Super-35 format so in the main, the matte (‘those black bars’ to theuninitiated) could be opened up to reveal more picture above and below theusual widescreen image, without losing much picture information, if any, atthe sides. There’s only a couple of scenes where a pan-and-scan shot rearsits ugly head, one being at the start of chapter 11 with Chazz Palminterisitting on one side of his office and Kevin Spacey on the other, but the imagepans from right to left as Dan Hedaya enters the office stage-left behindSpacey.

The sound comes across very clear on this disc, with surround sound used mainlyto set the tone for such a dark thriller, plus more active use in scenes whereVerbal gives a description what happened when Keyser Soze found intruders athome and a loud explosion on a boat.

The film is presented in English, French and Spanish languages, with subtitlesin each of the three plus Dutch.

Menu :

The interactive menu is a bit hit-and-miss at times. Sometimes you can clickon what’s on the screen, while at other times you need to use the onscreenremote control. Another thing to note is that on playing the disc you can’tskip past the Polygram logo and copyright info.

This disc certainly has its plus points – the picture and sound quality issuperb, it is quite well-chaptered and also code-free. Despite the “Region 2″symbol on the back cover, I played the disc straight after viewing a region 1disc on my PC DVD-ROM drive and it didn’t bring up the usual “wrong region”indication. I presume this is by accident rather than intentional, but it’sdefinitely a bonus nonetheless.

On the down side, this release could be considered a missed opportunity. Notonly is there no widescreen version, but it is also the director’s commentarytrack which adorns the original NTSC Laserdisc release.

So overall, what’s presented here is good, but given the aforementionedomissions, it could have been a whole lot more.FILM : *****PICTURE QUALITY (4:3): ****SOUND QUALITY: ****EXTRAS: **PACKAGE: **½

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1998.