Favorite Scene Friday! The Usual Suspects: A Perfect Ending?

How many films have perfect endings? It has to be a pretty small number. Sure, countless movies have great endings. A lot wrap up nicely and leave you feeling satisfied. But how many films have truly perfect endings? Down to the last second?

Wikipedia

Ending aside, The Usual Suspects is an excellent film.  Directed by Bryan Singer and released in 1995, the film tells the story of a group of “Usual Suspects” who are all recruited by a mysterious man named Keyser Söze to pull off a series of robberies. Most of the film is told in flashback form by Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) one of the only surviving Suspects. You see, the group's last job went bad and most of Kint's teammates wound up dead. U.S. Customs Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) spends the whole movie questioning Kint in an attempt to find out what happened.

If you haven’t seen The Usual Suspects, please don’t watch this. It essentially gives away the whole film. With that out of the way, our scene begins after Agent Kujan has released Verbal, satisfied that he’s outsmarted him and gotten the information he was looking for. What happens next is truly special. The realization that washes over Kujan. The music that slowly builds as the camera pans over sheets of paper on the tack board. The flood of overlapping dialogue and images flashing by. Agent Kujan rushing out of police headquarters to find that he's too late. Everything in this scene works in unison in service of the last few moments of the film. It all adds up to - in my opinion - perfection. I'd be surprised if this scene isn't the coolest thing you see today. As soon as Verbal's limp starts to fade...



So what do you think? Perfect? Or just really, really cool? Let me know, and, while you're at it, tell me some of your other favorite endings. And have a great weekend!

“And like that....he’s gone.”