Day 11: Do you know who you are talking to?

He is reflecting on the past few hours of conversation with Verbal, staring reflectively at the coffee-cup in his hand. Then the coffee-cup falls to the ground and shatters. Apocalypse. He sees it all suddenly as he looks around at his desk and bulletin boards, and flashbacks of the conversation come back to mock him. He runs out of the office yelling down the hallway. Agent Kujan has recognized the criminal he is after, and he has to admit, to shamelessly borrow the words of the song, that this is the day he wakes up to find that the one he's been looking for has been here the whole time. (This delay of recognition fun is not only for love stories.)

When I saw the Usual Suspects for the first time, I was as clueless as Agent Kujan, so the story was not very enjoyable and not did not seem worth all the times I had to cover my eyes to avoid a gruesome scene of violence. But then in the last five minutes, I was shown what I had missed. The ending was enjoyable but only as a surprise that I did not see coming.

So the second time I saw The Usual Suspects, it was much more interesting. Not because anything had changed, but I could now interpret the story with eyes that recognized the characters for who they really were. It is way better to catch the clues early on about who Keyser Soze really is than to miss them, whether you are in the story about to be killed or tricked by him, or whether you are in a much safer place as audience member.

I guess it is not a happy ending if you want an enemy of the state to get caught, but Kujan was a very arrogant state agent and any story that deflates a character's arrogance in a appropriate way can be considered a comedy. Maybe you'll get the next one, Kujan, when you're not so cocky and sure of yourself. Maybe you need to think a bit more about why it is the Scooby Doo and Shaggy type of detective that has a much greater track record when it comes to reeling in the crooks.