Great Characters: Keyser Söze (“The Usual Suspects”)
One of the most memorable Tricksters in recent cinema is Keyser Söze from the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects (written by Christopher McQuarrie).
An overview of the story from IMDB:
Following a truck hijack in New York, five conmen are arrested and brought together for questioning. As none of them is guilty, they plan a revenge operation against the police. The operation goes well, but then the influence of a legendary mastermind criminal called Keyser Söze is felt. It becomes clear that each one of them has wronged Söze at some point and must pay back now. The payback job leaves 27 men dead in a boat explosion, but the real question arises now: Who actually is Keyser Söze?
Who is Keyser Söze? In this scene, ex-con Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) tells U.S. customs office Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) tells a story that gets to the heart of the man:
http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=HWtz7
Verbal provides a huge clue in this scene when he says, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
Verbal follows this up with two other bits about Söze:
Keaton always said, “I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him.” Well I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Söze.
You think you can catch Keyser Söze? You think a guy like that comes this close to getting caught, and sticks his head out? If he comes up for anything it’ll be to get rid of me. After that… my guess is you’ll never hear from him again.
And so we are left to wonder: Does this criminal mastermind exist… or not? Kujan figures it out: Söze was Keaton [Gabriel Byrne]:
http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=xVJB
But finally the Trickster reveals his real stripes:
http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=fWny
Here’s the thing about twist ending: They always involve characters. And the most common character is the Trickster. So it’s not really about the twist per se, it’s about a revelation of the Trickster. Like Verbal Kint… er, Keyser Söze, a great character.
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