"The Usual Suspects" and Postmodernism

The Usual Suspects presents a perfect example of Postmodernism. There is not an easy conclusion. While, the audience and the detective finally figure out who the worst of the bad guys is, there are several other unscrupulous characters in the movie.

The movie begins with a group of thieves planning a heist. When they are caught by the police, flashbacks show different lewd actions by all of the characters. The one telling the story presents himself as a cripple, who is not the brightest bulb in the bunch. Therefore, the detective does not see him as a threat. He figures that the cripple man will squeal on the rest of the bunch.

Modernism might present a resolution, or insight, into the minds of these characters, and find something good in them to forgive. However, the brilliance of this movie lies in the fact that it does not. Jeff Jenson points out that the writer of the movie, "McQuarrie was dead set on painting his bad guys irredeemably bad. Hence, "no criminals with easily explained motivations, no commercially mandated redemption, and no camera tricks, either" (Jensen 50)

This description of Christopher McQuarrie's script speaks to the meaning of Postmodernism. In the same article for Rolling Stone Magazine, Jenson quotes McQuarrie as saying, "'I just didn't want to make a movie about those same friggin characters in the same f---cking way,'" (Jenson 50). By choosing to go outside the cookie-cutter ending and presenting these complicated, albeit doomed characters, with a more realistic view of the conscience of the criminal make the movie much more memorable.

McQuarrie sought to go an the opposite direction of predictability. Postmodernism also wishes to look beyond the obvious for problem solving in a text or film. Everything is not always so clear cut, in fact, most problems are not. In film, text, and music (although not as much in lyrics) writers lean toward resolution.
However, as Aaron Schutz says, "Postmodern writing generally seeks to complicate the ideas of simple unities and identities" (Schutz 218).

Many critics do not like this form of text because it makes no sense to them. But, does every problem, every mystery, have a solution? The challenge is to explore what might come after the ending of the story. This leaves one's imagination to go in any direction it wishes to go. There is freedom in this concept. One's logic does not have to end when the credits role.

The end of "The Usual Suspects" provides the audience to do just this. As the cripple finishes telling his story of pure fiction (or is it?) he leaves the precinct. When the detective figures out he is in fact Kaiser Soso, the villain of all villains, this is classic cinema. Schutz decribes this type of postmodernism as, "Stragegies [that are] thoroughly situated and contextualized; they are employed for particular purposes in particular contexts at particular times" (Shutz 218).

It all comes together for the detective and the audience when the cripple, as he exits the precinct, begins to walk perfectly, and lights a cigarette. The detective pieces all of the colorful stories he was told by him. Just as he was stunned, and dropped his coffee on the floor, so too was the audience. I would say this is Postmodernism at its very finest.



Works Cited

Jensen, Jeff. "The Trigger Movie; Christopher McQuarrie, Writer of 'The Usual Suspect," Goes 'The Way of the Gun." Rolling Stone. (Sept.22, 2000) pg. 50.

Schutz, Aaron. "Teaching Freedom? Postmodernism Perspectives." Review of Educational Research. V70, No.2 (Summer 2010). pg. 215-251.