11 Surprise Movie Villain Reveals Everyone Loved

3. Keyser Soze - The Usual Suspects

Memento Ending
Spelling Films International/Gramercy Pictures/PolyGram Filmed Entertainment

One of the things that makes a truly great reveal is that the audience never sees it coming. And in Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects, that trick was pulled off to perfection.

With a fantastic ensemble of ragtag criminals made up of Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, and Kevin Spacey, the central crux of The Usual Suspects is the mystery behind the shady figure of crime lord Keyser Soze.

As underhand act after underhand act unravels, Chazz Palminteri's detective Dave Kujan finds himself grilling the supposed weak link of this group of no-good sorts. That weak link, of course, being Spacey's Verbal Kint. Disabled and until that point depicted as being scared of his own shadow, Kint is the last person audiences expect to be Kesyer Soze.

After Verbal spills his guts to Kujan and is let out of custody, time freezes as Kujan, much like the audience, starts to piece together the answer to The Usual Suspect's biggest question.

Switching to Kint making his way out of the police station, we watch him slowly lose his limp and the damaged hand that is part of his supposed disability. Picking up pace, Verbal lights a cigarette and makes his way to a getaway car just as Kujan realises that he actually had Keyser Soze in his grasp but let him slip free.

Such was the surprise of Verbal Kint being revealed as Keyser Soze, even Gabriel Byrne was taken aback. Like audiences, Byrne was under the impression that his character of Dean Keaton was to be the real Keyser Soze by the time The Usual Suspect's final act had played out.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.