Comparison: Usual Suspects and Sixth Sense
As Todd and James have commented on the ending sequence in The Usual Suspects, both the writing — how McQuarrie ‘shielded’ the clues throughout the story — and the editing effectively drive home the story’s twist.
An interesting comparison is the twist revelation sequence in The Sixth Sense (1999). Two big differences right off the bat: First, in terms of content, this twist has to resolve itself in a way where the story’s Protagonist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) and his wife Anna Crowe (Olivia Williams) end up in an emotionally satisfying place — they both get a chance to say good-bye, acknowledge what happened, so they can move on with their respective ‘lives;’ so in essence an (albeit bittersweet) upbeat ending as opposed to Usual Suspect’s downbeat ending, at least so far as Chazz Palmenteri’s US Customs agent character is concerned. Second, whereas Suspects uses a ton of V.O. dialogue to stitch together the twist revelation, when the first inkling dawns on Crowe — hey, I might be dead — Sixth Sense goes through an almost strictly visual recounting of key beats in the story where Crowe puts it all together: yes, in fact, he is dead.
Here’s the ending twist revelation sequence of The Sixth Sense. As I say, an interesting comparison to The Usual Suspects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7t_VAWkiu0