The Usual Suspects questions and answers

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The Usual Suspects (1995) - 7 questions

Directed by Bryan Singer, starring Benicio Del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Dan Hedaya, Gabriel Byrne, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Spacey, Pete Postlethwaite, Stephen Baldwin, Suzy Amis

The "questions" section is for any random questions that occurred to you while watching this film, or anything you didn't entirely understand, and which Google or the IMDb can't help with. Submit them as a question, and hopefully someone will answer (the bold comments in brackets) - check back regularly. If the answer is wrong, or missing information, please use the "clarify answer" option. Don't feel limited - want to know what music played in a certain scene? Whether this was the first film to use a certain effect? Here's the place to ask!

Plot spoiler. I don't know if this is a plot hole or if it's an error on Söze's part, but. wouldn't the story he told the cop pretty much make killing the guy who could identify him irrelevant? Söze wanted him dead because he was the only one willing to identify him. But after the conversation with the police officer the cop would know that Verbal Kint was Kayser Söze. Thus his identity would be out in the open (lots of people seemed to know who Verbal Kint was after all). Did Söze just not think the cop would figure it out, is it a plot hole, or am I missing something? [Verbal doesn't really care. All he needs to do is keep Kujan occupied until he posts bail, then he's out and away. So he spins his story until he's free to go, putting in enough truths to keep Kujan interested and play up to his theory that Keaton might be Söze, then just walks straight out of the building. Once he's out, he vanishes back into the underground from where he came. Job's done, the only person who could positively identify him is dead. All that remains is a picture that resembles Verbal that might be of Söze, from a terribly-burned witness who might not survive anyway (and Söze would have the resources to eliminate anyway), a sealed testimony that's mostly a lie anyway and a conversation full of falsehoods with a known con artist. None of which would stand up in court as a positive identification, good enough to convict. The police will want to have a word with Verbal, sure, but Söze's got enough experience at vanishing that they'd never find him. Nothing remains to identify and incriminate Söze, which was his aim. The whole affair just joins the increasing list of stories surrounding the quasi-mythical figure of Keyser Söze.] Answered by Tailkinker

Plot Spoiler: If Verbal is Keyser Soze, then why does he throw a fit when the policeman storms back into the interrogation room and says "Who is Keyser Soze?" [Simple answer, its all part of the con. Verbal's back story shows that Keyser Soze is a dangerous man to deal with and the police wanting information about a man who should never be crossed is the last thing he wants to start discussing.] Answered by Lummie

Why was Benicio Del Toros' character killed in the film, what was the point if he was doing the job as well, surely it just makes it harder with less men? [Fenster was running away, making it entirely clear that he had no intention of going through with the job. As such, he was killed, both as revenge for crossing Soze and to make it clear to his erstwhile cohorts that attempting to flee was not a viable option.] Answered by Tailkinker

Is Keaton really as bad as Kujan says? Did he really kill all those people and set up all those deals? He didn't seem so bad to me. [What we're seeing in the film is a Keaton who's trying to reform, inspired by his relationship with Edie Finneran. Kujan has no particular reason to lie about Keaton's earlier exploits and it certainly seems from what's said in the film that Keaton was a major criminal in his time. True, many of these statements are taken from Verbal's tale, so they cannot be taken as being definitive, but they must contain a reasonable element of truth or Kujan, who is clearly familiar with Keaton's file, would have picked up on it.] Answered by Tailkinker

Sometimes it's difficult to tell which events are real and which aren't. Which events actually happened, and which ones did Verbal make up? [There's no particularly good way to tell - one good rule of thumb is to consider which events the police would be able to quickly check themselves. So, for example, Verbal's description of the attack on New York's Finest Taxi Service would have been substantially factual, as he wouldn't want to risk contradicting anything that the police might have found out from witnesses. Likewise the deaths of Saul Berg and his bodyguards would be largely correct. The most likely scenario is that large parts of what Verbal says are reasonably close to the truth - by doing that, it would make it easier for him to stick to a consistent story.] Answered by Tailkinker

I'm a little slow on drug slang, so is the drug on the boat cocaine or marijuana? I'm pretty sure it's cocaine as 91,000,000 dollars of marijuana sounds a bit ludicrous, but it's referred to by Kujan as Dope, which in the UK means pot/marijuana. Could someone correct my slang and tell me what is on the boat? [Dope generally refers to marijuana but it is cocaine in the deal. When Kobayashi comes to see the men and shows them all that evidence he has on them, he mentions to them about the drug deal and refers to it as Cocaine.] Answered by Lummie

Why do the gang decide to kill Kobayashi (when they are dressed as repair men and shoot the other two men in the elevator)? [Keaton doesn't believe in Keyser Soze, and is so convinced that Kobayashi is the one pulling the strings and manipulating them. They figure that if they take HIM out, they are home free.]