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100A near-classic blend of mystery, personality, humor and terror, laced with one stunning shock after another. [18 August 1995, Friday, p.C]
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100This movie has everything but Humphrey Bogart, and I'm sure he's sorry he was unavailable.
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100The Usual Suspects is an ironic, bang-up thriller about the wages of crime. A terrific cast of exciting actors socks over this absorbingly complicated yarn that's been spun in a seductively slick fashion by director Bryan Singer.
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90This one's done right. Here's an intelligent movie with no special effects. You have to pay close attention, to listen hard to its cross-fires of dialogue.
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89A movie with style to burn, and, initially, that is this crime drama's most mesmerizing aspect.
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88The Usual Suspects is an accomplished synthesis of noir elements and, as such, is an entertaining entry to the genre.
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88The Usual Suspects filled me with a highly unusual urge - to be a true "reviewer," to rewind the projector and figure out this humdinger once and for all.
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88Dense, ironic and thoroughly engrossing caper melodrama.
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85Byrne is a stand-up poet the way some actors are stand-up comics. His innate depth prompts The Usual Suspects to transcend its own cleverness--and this is the movie's smartest, least predictable surprise.
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80For my money, The Usual Suspects was the pulp fiction of the '90s.
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80I liked this film better the second time around.
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80The Usual Suspects is a maze that moviegoers will be happy to get lost in, a criminal roller coaster with twists so unsettling no choice exists but to hold on and go along for the ride.
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80Goes straight to cult status without quite touching one important base: the audience's emotions. This movie finally isn't anything move than an intricate feat of gamesmanship, but it's still quite something to see. [16 August 1995, p. C15]
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This thriller is like a game of life-and-death chess, with quick double-crosses and wild gambits.
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75Dense with plot intricacies, thick with atmosphere, and packed with showy roles for a hip ensemble.
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70Something quite different: A movie that's smarter than you are.
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70Snappy heist film that keeps changing the rules of a mystery so that one is never sure whose hands are at the controls.
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63Look out for everything, and listen, too, because Suspects is one of the most densely plotted mysteries in memory.
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60Screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie's tough-guy dialogue and Bryan Singer's crisp direction give the ensemble cast every opportunity to shine, and they do.
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50Self-consciously bleak.
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50Nothing more than an over-designed lobster pot. After following the beckoning twists and turns, you're left trapped and more than a little disappointed for getting in so deep.
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38To the degree that you will want to see this movie, it will be because of the surprise, and so I will say no more, except to say that the "solution," when it comes, solves little - unless there is really little to solve, which is also a possibility.