The Oscar-Winning '90s Crime Thriller That Roger Ebert Didn't Care For

In his nearly 50 years as film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert had a reputation for being lucid, passionate, and, when a film happened to rub him the wrong way, cranky. As seen in his weekly sparring sessions with the Chicago Tribune's Gene Siskel on their syndicated review show (which bore several titles, but is probably best known as "At the Movies"), Ebert could unleash withering invective at a film that wasted his time and/or insulted his intelligence. He was infamous for his hatred of the 1980s spate of slasher films, as well as his "How could they do this to Jennifer Jason Leigh" one-star pan of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Filmmakers were occasionally stung enough by his ire that they named characters after him who were snobby, mean-spirited, or downright monstrousness. (The Eborsisk in "Willow," for example, was a hideous amalgam of Ebert and Siskel.)

Ebert is, of course, hardly alone in this. Any critic whose job requires them to watch over 200 movies every year is going to need to blow off some steam from time to time. As a reader, these reviews can be cathartic when you agree with the ill sentiment or infuriating if you land on the other end of the spectrum. I adore Ebert as a writer and a thinker, but I think he did his craft a horrible disservice when he not only rejected David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" as "unworthy" art, but also accused the director of having taken emotional liberties with his actors, especially Isabella Rossellini. Though the film absolutely puts Rossellini through the wringer, Ebert had no right to level such an accusation. How could he know what was going on in Lynch's mind or Rossellini's? That he stuck to his guns after interviewing Lynch at the New York Film Festival made him look all the more wrongheaded. (Ebert's also responsible for the critical blight that is Rotten Tomatoes, but let's take one grievous offense at a time.)

This, however, is how criticism works. When you've done it long enough, there are films that will draw that opprobrium out of you and get you going against the grain of conventional wisdom. When you disagree, it's jarring. When you agree, you rejoice. There are times when you walk out of a critically acclaimed movie and wonder if the rest of the world is pulling a prank on you, so reading a review that gives voice to your bewildered consternation is like a tall drink of ice water in the desert.

Here's one time when Ebert's contrary viewpoint slaked my own vituperative thirst.

When "The Usual Suspects" hit U.S. theaters on August 16, 1995, it was lavished with acclaim by the majority of critics. The timing of its release was crucial. Critics had just endured a summer filled with the usual assortment of low-aiming mainstream entertainments, and were thus grateful for a well-cast thriller that made them think. Most reviewers singled out the performances while expressing amusement or delighted befuddlement at the movie's wallop of an ending.

Ebert, however, was not delighted one bit. In his one-and-a-half-star review, he noted that his displeasure was reinforced by a second viewing of the film, which he found to be something of an empty magic trick. He complained that the plot didn't entirely add up and finally threw up his hands by writing, "To the degree that I do understand, I do not care."

"I prefer to be amazed by motivation, not manipulation," said Ebert, which continues to be my problem with the movie as well. This isn't about the characters being unlikeable or difficult to root for. The great films noir of the 1940s and '50s are lousy with lowdown scoundrel protagonists. It's about the way the story is told from the perspective of Kevin Spacey's Verbal Kint, whose name might as well have been Unreliable Narrator, and how the film's characters, no matter how well played, are resolutely one-dimensional.

Ebert correctly clocked Christopher McQuarrie's Oscar-winning screenplay as more of an exercise than a movie. The critic drove one last nail in the coffin with the final sentence of his review: "To the degree that you will want to see this movie, it will be because of the surprise, and so I will say no more, except to say that the 'solution,' when it comes, solves little — unless there is really little to solve, which is also a possibility."