An Oscar-winning 90s crime thriller that Roger Ebert couldn’t care less about

During his nearly 50 years as a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert had a reputation for being clear-headed, passionate, and when a movie got him wrong, cranky. As seen in his weekly sparring sessions with the Chicago Tribune’s Gene Siskel on their syndicated review show (which went by several titles, but probably best known as “At the Movies”), Ebert could unleash withering rants on a movie that wasted his time and/or or insulted his intelligence. He was infamous for his hatred of the slasher wave of the 1980s, as well as his How Could They Do That to Jennifer Jason Leigh? one-star “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” panel. Filmmakers were occasionally so taken with his anger that they called him character names that were brash, mean, or just plain awful. (For example, Eborsisk in The Willow was a terrifying amalgam of Ebert and Siskel.)

Ebert, of course, is hardly alone in this. Any critic whose job requires watching more than 200 films each year will need to let off steam every now and then. As a reader, these reviews can be cathartic if you agree with the bad sentiment, or infuriating if you’re on the other end of the spectrum. I adore Ebert as a writer and thinker, but I think he has done his cause a terrible disservice by not only dismissing Blue Velvet by David Lynch as “unworthy” art, but also accused the director of taking emotional liberties with his actors, especially Isabella Rossellini. Although the film completely puts Rossellini through the wringer, Ebert had no right to make such an accusation. How could he know what was going on in Lynch’s or Rossellini’s mind? That he stood his ground after the interview with Lynch at the New York Film Festival seemed even more out of place. (Ebert is also responsible for of the critical debacle that is Rotten Tomatoesbut let’s have one serious offense each.)

However, that’s how criticism works. If you do it long enough, there are movies that will shame you and force you to go against conventional wisdom. If you don’t agree, it’s annoying. If you agree, you rejoice. There are times when you walk out of a critically acclaimed film and wonder if the rest of the world is playing a joke on you, so reading a review that expresses your bemused bewilderment is like drinking ice water in the desert.

Here’s one time Ebert’s opposing point of view quenched my own angry thirst.

When The Usual Suspects opened in US theaters on August 16, 1995, it was panned by most critics. The timing of its release was crucial. Critics had just endured a summer filled with the usual assortment of poorly directed mass entertainment, and so were grateful for a well-placed thriller that made them think. Most reviewers singled out the performances, expressing amusement or gleeful bewilderment the end of the movie.

Ebert, however, was not thrilled. In his one and a half star reviewhe noted that his displeasure was heightened by re-watching the film, which he found to be something of an empty magic trick. He complained that the plot didn’t quite fit, and finally threw up his hands, writing, “As far as I understand, I don’t care.”

“I’d rather be surprised by the motivation than the manipulation,” Ebert said, which also remains my problem with the film. It’s not that the characters aren’t likable or hard to root for. The great noir films of the 1940s and 50s are sleazy with villainous protagonists. It’s about how the story is told from the point of view of Kevin Spacey’s Verbal Kint, whose name might as well be The Unreliable Narrator, and how the film’s characters, no matter how well-acted, are one-dimensional.

Ebert correctly judged Christopher McQuarrie’s Oscar-winning screenplay as more of an exercise than a film. The critic put the final nail in the coffin with the last sentence of his review: “To the extent that you want to see this film, it will be because of the surprise, so I won’t say anything more than to say that the ‘decision’ if it comes, it solves little – unless there is nothing to solve, which is also possible.”