Most films have a ton of style but very little substance or logic to hold their plot together. Many films build a serpentine story only to resolve it by way of a completely ridiculous outcome. Many films don’t take time to tell an interesting story without feeling it needs to spoon-feed the audience plot points. And many films forget that part of being creative is staying true to one’s imagination.

The Usual Suspects plays against this common mass-manufactured formula and spends time digging deep into the root of popular mythology. Christopher McQuarrie’s script leverages the power of ghost stories and urban legend to construct Keyser Soze -- a ruthless Hungarian mobster that lives within the minds of people but who has no concrete proof of existence. Whether he is truly real or a figment of an overactive imagination is not known for sure. The only evidence lies in the ramblings of Roger "Verbal" Kint and a Hungarian sailor barely holding onto life. The story is largely told in flashback from Verbal’s point of view and involves him and four other criminals and how they become indebted to the mysterious, but unseen, Soze.

I was floored the first time, the second time, and each successive time I watched this film. Yeah, yeah, by now everyone knows the ending, but it’s not the ending that makes it great. It’s the craftsmanship, the sum of its parts that makes The Usual Suspects exceptional. Never once was I drawn to lapses in logic or holes in its plot -- because there were none. I never truly knew if Keyser Soze was real or not because the sincerity of those who supported his existence was always in question. Should one believe a horribly burned, and possibly delirious sailor or a pathetic two-bit criminal scared for his life? The irony is that we want to believe both of them because like any campfire story or well-done X-Files, human beings intensely want to believe that there is evil in the world. To believe is to give a face to the horrors of everyday life and explain unexplained occurrences.

A completely new high-definition transfer and remastered Dolby Digital mix only adds to the enjoyment of this film. And while both the audio and video of this DVD do fall short of reference-level standards, they make the most of the film’s low-budget roots. Blacks are rich, and MPEG artifacts are present but hardly distracting. Audio was equally good and clean, though some foley effects -- including one of the finale’s explosions -- did sound slightly overblown.

There’s something that seems to happen to a cast and crew when a documentary recalling their experience is made several years following the film’s release. There's no marketing hyperbole and no empty promises, but there is a ton of humility. The huge weight of succeeding or failing has past and what’s left is only honesty and good-natured humor about the experience. Like Superman: The Movie and The Exorcist, the new documentary included on this special-edition disc is a retrospective that shines the spotlight on some very interesting and funny people. Describing it here would pale compared to experiencing it, and the unique gag reel, first hand. Like Superman, though, I would have liked two DVDs over the single two-sided low-cost version. Maybe if Paramount had gotten rid of the stupid plastic packaging sleeve, they would have been able to afford the second disc?