8. Dean Keaton Is Keyser Soze? - The Usual Suspects
Before the huge, stunning reveal 10 minutes later, this incredible scene is often lost in the shuffle. Akin to breaking the world record but still coming in second, Agent Kuljan offers up this gem: "The kind of man who can wrangle the wills of men like Hockney and McManus. The kind of man that could engineer a police lineup, for all those years in the NYPD. The kind of man who could kill Edie Finneran!" At the time, this made perfect sense: Dean Keaton was charismatic, dangerous, and vengeful. A former cop turned criminal, he seemed like the perfect choice for someone who would appropriate an urban legend like Keyser Soze for his own diabolical ends. The fact that this turned out to be untrue is irrelevant. As is the fact that this was the outcome that Verbal Kint was scheming toward. As flashbacks show the kind of man Dean Keaton was, the point was to show how agent Kuljan (and more importantly the audience) had been duped. Kudos to the agent who didn't know how wrong he was, spinning a fantastic yarn.
