8 Movies That Fooled Us Twice

When it comes to mysteries in film you don’t get many more timeless questions than “who is Keyser Söze”. The plot of The Usual Suspects centres around this entire thread, the unknown identity of the so-called criminal bogeyman.

Any good mystery film ends with the perpetrator being identified and if done correctly you get that perfect “aha” moment. It’s shocking but, when you think about it, it all makes sense. Agent Kujan comes to the conclusion that Keaton is Söze and there’s no reason to doubt his theory as it’s pretty much water-tight. When the film starts with Keaton’s apparent death, you believe you’ve been duped and that it was all staged.

But that second bigger twist is that it isn’t fake. Keaton is dead, and Söze was the man to do it. And Söze is Verbal Kint, the man who has been giving Agent Kujan all of this info to place the blame on Keaton. A genius con man, it’s only after Kint has left that Kujan realises that his story is fabricated with aspects invented by looking around the agent’s messy office.

In one of the greatest endings in cinematic history, Söze quite literally shakes off the Verbal Kint character (including his limp) as he leaves the station and disappears back into the criminal underworld once more.