Are we to take for granted that **** is really dead?
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Usual Suspects
King-Stannis-Baratheon — 10 years ago(September 07, 2015 07:20 PM)
I saw the movie for the second time today, but had some distractions so maybe I missed some key clues.
Are we to take for granted that all of the lineup gang are necessarily dead, or that they were involved with the heist/assassination to begin with?
At first glance, the only things that we can really take for granted are the police lineup, that the ship was attacked, that Verbal was somehow involved, and that Keaton's girlfriend was killed.
I think that events may have occurred similarly to how Verbal recounted them, but with the "Keyser Soze" twist of course. Kujan's revelation scene goes pretty quickly, so just what did Verbal definitely fabricate? He changed the names of some of the people, but I didn't quite catch all of the other revelations.
Kujan seemed convinced that Keaton was alive, but the burned bodies could make identification difficult. Kujan also contested Verbal's opinion of Keaton's character, insisting that he was a cold-blooded killer, which could point toward Verbal fabricating what we were shown of the character. Were any of the others positively identified as being dead? Especially with Fenster, it is theoretically possible that he was never even killed.
The clue that may point toward the ship heist occurring as we were shown, with Verbal as "Keyser Soze," is the fact that Verbal took a gold lighter before leaving, which would presumably be the same lighter that "Keyser Soze" used during the flashback. How deep does the rabbit-hole go?
Brienne: "Any last words?"
Stannis: "The siege begins at sunrise." -
Stratego — 10 years ago(September 08, 2015 01:19 PM)
Are we to take for granted that all of the lineup gang are necessarily dead, or that they were involved with the heist/assassination to begin with
The scene in the beginning in which Soze shoots and kills Keaton is shown before Verbal starts telling his story, so I really think we have to assume he's really dead. Therefore I think the others are most likely dead as well and were just used by Soze to get onto the boat and kill the rat. Don't forget that Hockney was shot on the dock and was probably not burned.
He changed the names of some of the people, but I didn't quite catch all of the other revelations.
I think he changed a little more than that. The beginning may be pretty truthful, but I think that once Soze's name is mentioned the story becomes more fantastical and more in line with Kujan's theory about what happened.
But the director has said it's up to the viewer to decide what really happened or not, so whatever it is you believe isn't "wrong".