The Usual Suspects and a flaw...?????

[DemonKae28]

just saw it... great film.. told in Tarantinoesque nonlinear fashion and
done very well... confusing as hell till you watch it again. BUT.. i
heard somewhere that there's a "flub" ("mcguffin?") in the film.. a MAJOR
one.. what could it be? anyone know?

[TeddyB1018]

Could it be than in the first scene -- the only scene not told from Kevin
Spacey's recounting -- that Keyser Soze is wearing an overcoat and hat and
that Verbal Kint who is supposed top be Keyser is not? Or is it the
implausibility that Keyser Soze would arrange to be arrested (twice) and
form an elaborate plot using the Usual Suspects to help kill an informant
that he winds up killing singlehanded anyway only to "disappear forever"
afterwards anyway?? All that said I loved the movie and think it's great
that Chris McQuarrie's up for an Oscar.

[Phant153]

demon...@aol.com (DemonKae28) wrote:
> BUT.. i heard somewhere that there's a "flub" ("mcguffin?") in
>the film

A "McGuffin" isn't a _flaw_ in a film so much as it is something left
unsaid. Actually, I'm surprised this hasn't come up more often in
Tarantino discussions, since the PULP FICTION briefcase is a perfect
example of the McGuffin. I'm not sure where exactly the term originated,
but I first heard of it in regards to Hitchcock, who apparently enjoyed
using the McGuffin to make things a bit more interesting in a film, and to
avoid using a boring or cliched rationalization when the reason behind
certain actions could simply never be revealed.

If I recall correctly, "McGuffin" is a term for a box used to capture
lions in the highlands of Scotland. "But there are no lions in Scotland."
"Then there is no McGuffin."

Jeff Coleman

[Zach Douglas]

Spoiler Alert---------------

In article <4gnsqb$6...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, phan...@aol.com says...

>
>demon...@aol.com (DemonKae28) wrote:
>> BUT.. i heard somewhere that there's a "flub" ("mcguffin?") in
>>the film
>
>
>A "McGuffin" isn't a _flaw_ in a film so much as it is something left
>unsaid. Actually, I'm surprised this hasn't come up more often in

I guess in relation to Suspects, a lot of people would say the 'McGuffin'
might be that the whole movie may or may not have taken place. It could all
either be strictly manufactured by Verbal, or perhaps it all really took
place just like he said it did but with a few names changed.

Great show. Very UN-Tarantinoesque actually, and one of the few movies I've
really really liked since Pulp Fiction came out.

[DemonKae28]

well the overcoat was part of what people perceived of Keyser.. he was
very elusive. that also explains why in the story about him he has long
hair and shit... that's what people think he looks like.

is Chris McCullen the writer? who wrote it? i heard the writer and Bryan
Singer did another film too...

[DemonKae28]

the briefcase wasn't a mcguffin.. it was purposedly ambiguous.. maybe it's
a mcguffin done on purpose, but that's how it should've been.

[DemonKae28]

well i found the nonlinear storytelling to be tarantinoesque, that is not
to say that he invented it though. but he did popularize it in his two
films (and allegedly in the script to true romance). kinda like how the
hamburger was popularized in Hamburg but not invented there. a lot of
movies are like that i'm sure, but none so well done as Usual Suspects.

[Phant153]

A "McGuffin" doesn't imply something done by accident, it actually refers
to something done on purpose, as the briefcase was.

Jeff Coleman

[TeddyB1018]

Actually the term "McGuffin" in it's current Hollywood derivation is
usually used to describe a surprise twist. One that's saved for later on
in a script like the dick in Crying Game or certainly the reveal of Keyser
Soze in Usual Suspects. More specifically it would refer to something that
seems to be one thing but turns out to be something altogether different.

[sch...@mail.ameritel.net]

I wouldn't call it a flaw or anything of the kind rather than an uncharacteristic (based on the rest of the movie) corny twist at the end. Don't ge me wrong I loved the movie AND the ending, but this just kinda'
annoyed me a little.

O.K...Here it is, the opening scene involving the Gabriel Burne character being shot and the boat exploding is the anchor which we keep referring back to as the story unfolds. A dark, unrecognizable, stereotype of
a villain, is draped in an overcoat and wears a hat. He shoots Burne's character.

Now cut to the end, Verbal (Kevin Spacey's character) is being broken down by the police lieutenant into admitting that he had been lying and that it was actually Burne's ideas all along. The cop insists that Burne
was Keyser Soze and we see these quick cuts of clips from all through the movie of him acting in mysterious ways culminating with a clip of him we hadn't seen in the movie. We see him dressed in a long overcoat
wearing a hat and he's firing a gun towards the camera. Presumably he's supposed to be shooting himself in this fantastical scene.

It stood out to me as a rather unusual device used to convince the audience that Burne's character ACTUALLY was Keyser Soze. I asked my girlfriend why she thought they had done this and she said she had
forgotten about the opening scene throughout the course of the movie and that maybe the director was betting that the audience would forget about it as well.