#obligatory disclaimer that I do not care for kevin spacey

[mr-snailman]

ok major spoilers for the usual suspects under the cut don't read if you haven't seen the movie 'cause this is one you absolutely want to go in blind for

so dean keaton and verbal kint drive me fucking wild, okay? because their relationship is so layered. because everybody, everybody thinks keaton is the most dangerous guy in the room. kujan's obsessed with him. he's older, he's been doing this for longer, he's smarter than the rest of these trigger-happy maniacs, and he's charming and good-looking so of course the audience is going to look up to him-- the way verbal kint looked up to him, little verbal kint with his nonstop mouth and his big dark eyes and his bad left leg. why the hell is he even here, man? he's not a robber, not a heist man. he's a con artist, clearly the weakest link in the room. so of course he looks up to keaton. of course keaton takes him under his wing, sort of, tries to protect him during the last job, the one that blows up in their faces. tale as old as time, right?

but here's the kicker: verbal kint does not exist, and keyser soze is the most dangerous man in every room he walks into. so it's this flip of the power dynamics, right, and I think there's a lot of room to explore how fucking weird that would be for everyone involved had keaton lived long enough to talk about it. because every time he looks at this guy he's seeing double: kint and soze layered over each other. that's verbal's shy smile but the fierce cut-glass hardness in his eyes is something keaton's never seen before. he keeps verbal's limp, out of habit, maybe, but when he shoots he holds the gun with his left hand and his aim is steady. and keaton just doesn't know what to make of him but he's still fucking mesmerized and in too deep to walk away.

it's got shades of mr. white and mr. orange, actually, now that I think about it, if mr. orange had turned out to be the shark to joe cabot's big fish.