The Oscar-winning 1990s crime thriller that Roger Ebert didn’t care about

During his nearly 50 years as film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert was known for being articulate, passionate, and when a movie happened to rub him the wrong way, he was eccentric. As we saw in his weekly sparring sessions with Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune on their syndicated review show (which bore several titles, but were probably better known as “At the Movies”), Ebert could unleash a scathing invective on a film that wasted his time And his time. / Or insulted his intelligence. He was notorious for his hatred of the 1980s horror film wave, as well as his How Could They Do This to Jennifer Jason Leigh? One-star article for “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Filmmakers were sometimes so shocked by his rage that they named after him characters who were arrogant, mean-spirited, or downright brutal. (For example, Eborsisk in Willow was a hideous combination of Ebert and Siskel.)

Of course, Ebert is not alone in this. Any critic whose job requires watching more than 200 films each year will need to blow off some steam from time to time. As a reader, these reviews can be cathartic when you agree with the bad vibes or infuriating if you reach the other end of the spectrum. I adore Ebert as a writer and thinker, but I think he did a huge disservice to his career when he didn’t just refuse David Lynch “Blue Velvet” As an “unworthy” art, he also accused the director of taking emotional liberties with his actors, especially Isabella Rossellini. Although the film puts Rossellini in a very difficult position, Ebert had no right to make such an accusation. How could he know what Lynch or Rossellini had in mind? That he stuck to his guns after interviewing Lynch at the New York Film Festival only made him seem even more wrong. (Ebert is also responsible for The critical hit that is Rotten TomatoesBut let’s take one serious crime at a time.)

But that’s how criticism works. When you’ve done it long enough, there are movies that will take that disdain out of you and make you go against the grain of conventional wisdom. When they differ, it is dissonance. When you agree, you rejoice. Sometimes you walk away from a critically acclaimed film wondering if the rest of the world is fooling you, so reading a review that gives voice to your bewildered consternation is like taking a long drink of ice water in the desert.

This is the time when Ebert’s dissenting point of view quenched my thirst for a mug.

When The Usual Suspects was released in US theaters on August 16, 1995, it was received well by most critics. The timing of its release was crucial. Critics had just endured a summer filled with the usual assortment of low-key mainstream entertainment, and were therefore grateful for a well-acted thriller that made them think. Most reviewers singled out the performances while expressing amusement or delightful confusion by them The movie from the end.

But Ebert was not at all pleased. In his review, he gave it one and a half starsHe noted that his dissatisfaction was exacerbated by a second viewing of the film, which he found to be an empty magic trick. He complained that the plot didn’t quite make sense, and eventually threw up his hands by writing, “To the degree I understand it, I don’t care.”

“I prefer to be amazed by stimulation, not manipulation,” Ebert said, which remains my problem with the film as well. It’s not that the characters are unlikable or difficult to get to. The great noirs of the 1940s and 1950s are bad with their villain heroes. It’s about the way the story is told from the perspective of actor Kevin Spacey’s Verbal Kint, whose name might as well have been Unreliable Narrator, and how the film’s characters, no matter how well they’re played, are completely one-dimensional.

Ebert correctly described Christopher McQuarrie’s Oscar-winning screenplay as more of an exercise than a movie. The critic hammered a final nail in the coffin with the last sentence of his review: “To the degree you will want to see this film, it will be because of the surprise, so I will say no more, except to say so.” The “solution” when it comes solves little, unless there is little to be solved, which is also a possibility.