The Usual Suspects (Film Noir)

When i was assigned a film noir to watch, i chose the usual suspects. On watching it, it took me by surprise. I thought the movie was going to be more investigative, stuffy, and dialogue drive, but it had a great sense of humor and was full of not over-the-top action sequences. I had mixed feelings about the camera work: i thought the elevator camera was really cool and then two guys get assassinated in the elevator, but the guy who shoots them is directly above them and there are blood marks behind their heads as if he climbed down, shot both, then climbed back up to where he initially was before taking the third guy hostage. I did enjoy the semi-framed narrative sequence, where Kevin Spacey is giving his account of what happened with the 5 conmen and then a sequence of those actual events happening, and then a new topic being introduced to present Kevin Spacey for him to recall and repeat the cycle. One of my favorite scenes was the Kaiser Sosa scene where he kills his family and then ruins the lives of the turkish conmen. I really wasn't expecting something like that to happen and it definitely threw me for a loop. Overall, i did enjoy the movie. Some of the lines are repetitive and some of the camera choices are questionable, but the characters are all solid and the narrative is well put together. 7/10.