The Ones That Didn't Quite Make it

#2: The Line Up (Spacey; Del Toro et al.). The Usual Suspects (1995)



Although the final scene of this film is it's most famous - and possibly rightly so - this remains my absolute favorite. Unfortunate not to make it into my top 25, this great moment manages to tread the fine line of being the plot's pivotal moment whilst also providing the film's funniest moment, which has since attained cult status. It is (a then largely unknown) Benicio Del Toro's drugged up playboy Fenster who provides the killer line - it's the "what da fuck" at the end of it that really makes it. Having, in the previous scene, delivered a strut worthy of gracing the pinnacle of any 'Greatest Walks in Cinematic History' list, the underused Fenster gives the serious, taught, noir tone of this classic thriller a lighter touch, ably supported here by a superb supprting cast. Has any short scene been as effective as this brief moment in providing that vital slight shard of insight into it's charcaters in that briefest of flashes on which all films aspiring to greatness must inevitably rely? Awesome.