The director's lie that spoils this film for me (SPOILER ALERT)
For me The Usual Suspects starts off with a fundamental misdirection that is completely unfair. In the opening sequence we see repeated shots of the boxes where Verbal claims to be hiding--camera closing in to suggest very strongly that someone or something is there (that was the conclusion I drew even before hearing Verbal's story, as I'm sure most people did).
Later Verbal tells his tale. SPOILER ALERT: It's all lies. But that's OK--it's Verbal's story illustrated, so any lies told by the camera while recounting this story are simply illustrations of Verbal's lies.
But the opening sequence is not Verbal's story--it's the director's. It's the impartial camera guiding us to what we should look at. And the sequence strongly implies: Someone is behind those boxes. In fact, there's no one there.
That's a fundamental lie from the director. Not playing fair.