dvd on tap: The Usual Suspects [Bryan Singer]

The film which made Bryan Singer a household name - wait, that was Xmen *lol*. Anyway, this film earned him the privilege to do them mutants. Five ne'er-do-gooders of varying criminal achievements - McManus (Stephen Baldwin), Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), Hockney (Kevin Pollak), and Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) - get picked up by the police on flimsy charges. Pissed, they band together and strike back at the cops. They seem to form a common bond and continue doing jobs until a mysterious figure named Kayser Soze (represented by Pete Postlethwhaite as Japanese lawyer Kobayashi) contracts them to do a job that raises their stakes on its success to a personal level. Pursued by US Customs agent Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), the group manages to remain one step ahead and complete their mission - exactly as the shadowy puppet-master Soze had planned. The film is told in flashbacks, narrated by Spacey's character, and if there's an entertaining way to unfold a crime thriller with plot twists, this is the way to do it. Definite thumbs-up all around.

The greatest assembly of actors ever put in a police lineup (yes, even with THAT Baldwin brother)