The Usual Suspects (1995) - 10 questions

Question: At the start of the film we see Keyser Soze kill Keaton and then set fire to the boat and walk away. If he has already accomplished all his goals (killing the witness and killing the 3 remaining thieves), why do we see him later as Verbal Kint in the police station? Why wouldn't Keyser Soze (a mastermind) simply have escaped into thin air after he blows up the ship?

Answer: He needed to give the police SOME kind of explanation for all the violence at the harbor, or it would have become a big mystery like Jimmy Hoffa or Amelia Earhart's disappearances that people are always trying to solve, and then someone may have discovered more truth than he wanted.

Question: It is clear from the last scene that Kobayashi was not a made up character just his name, but what would have happened if McManus had killed him in the building? Surely that was not part of the plan. Also, was it Verbal at the start that killed Keaton? I saw the killer had a gold lighter, which may or may not be connected to the items Verbal later picked up upon leaving the police station. And if it was Verbal, then why didn't Keaton look for an exclamation because wouldn't Verbal have fooled them also with his "act".Did Verbal kill the other usual suspects?

Answer: McManus could have killed "Kobayashi", it's true, but any plan has an element of risk. By bringing in Edie Finneran to consult on the case, they're making it clear to Keaton that any deviation from their wishes will result in her death, relying on his feelings for her to get him to force the others to toe the line. Kobayashi then forces the issue further by revealing what he knows about their families, making it clear that, if they kill him, their loved ones will suffer. While much of the truth behind the film is a little fluid, it does appear that Verbal was indeed Keaton's killer - when he finally sees his attacker's face, Keaton's look of disbelief followed by resigned acceptance would seem to indicate that he's finally figured out what's been happening, that he's been manipulated from the start, but the realisation is too late for him to do anything. As for the other three "suspects", it seems likely from what's shown in the film that Verbal killed Hockney and McManus personally. Who killed Fenster is somewhat less obvious; most likely he was slain by "Kobayashi", or agents working for him, after he tried to run.

Question: Why did Keyser Söze (Verbal Kint) plot to kill/eliminate all the 'Usual Suspects'?

Answer: Each of them has unknowingly crossed him in some manner. So he pulls them together into a group, uses them as pawns to help him eliminate the man who can identify him, then, once that's done, he cleans up the loose ends by taking them out.

Question: 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?

Answer: 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.

Question: 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?"

Answer: 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.

Question: 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?

Answer: 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.

Question: 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.

Answer: 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.

Question: 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?

Answer: 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.

Question: 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?

Answer: 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.

Question: Why do the gang decide to kill Kobayashi (when they are dressed as repair men and shoot the other two men in the elevator)?

Answer: 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.