MovieChat Forums > The Usual Suspects (1995) Discussion > It's Not Hard to Understand

It's Not Hard to Understand

posted 9 years ago by darthhade
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Soze thought he could get off the pier before the cops got there. He couldn't... didn't.

He had to use one of his old aliases to cover his tracks. He used his power and influence to get a meaningless charge that he has no intention of serving as Verbal Kint.

He will be out of the country by sundown.

What people have to remember is that he didn't yet know that a Hungarian survived the boat/pier explosion.

Yes, he talks his way out of helping agent Kujan through testifying, but he simply gets lucky in leaving before the drawing can be completed and faxed over to the police station.

A few more minutes and he was toast.

I love this film.

It is truly one of the best ever and McQuarrie truly earned that screenplay Oscar.

Having said this, I hate all the overanalyzing by fans and especially critics about the whole Kaiser Soze thing.

Yes, there is a Kaiser Soze.

He mixed in truth, half-truths and lies to what he told Kujan. Mostly, he just changed names. I believe the events were all real. For example, the whole thing with Redfoot happened. It's just that the guys name wasn't really Redfoot.

The most important thing to remember is that Kaiser Soze is real. It is Verbal Kint that is not.

"You think you can catch Keyser Soze? 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." - Verbal Kint to Dave Kujan

[–] Stratego 9 years ago

You complain about fans "overanalyzing", but go on to speculate about what may or may not have happened yourself. The director has said that's it's "up for debate", so he more or less has given his permission to discuss it.

I personally think it's pretty pointless and not as shocking if only the names aren't true. Verbal was making things up as he went along. Until the name Soze was dropped he planned to stick to the dope deal gone wrong story, after that he told Kujan what he wanted to hear. And considering the whole Soze myth and the fact that this guy did make up some fantastical anecdotes (coffee bean picking in Guatemala, barbershop quartet in Skokie) it makes sense if much of the story was also made up.

And no, I don't think Soze is real either, that identity is probably just as fake as Verbal Kint.