# The Usual Suspects: Who is Keyser Soze? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 24, 2001, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272 "2001-10-24T06:17:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Smokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Smokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smokey)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272/1 "2001-10-24T06:17:51Z")
If any of you reading this thread have never seen this movie, then stop right here, it will spoil it for you and that would be a bad thing. I’ll give you some space to think about if you want to read this or not. This is the subject of a debate on my ‘home’ message board, so I wanted to hear from a different perspective, yours, if the consensus is that Verbal is Soze, or is Soze not actually in the movie. My reasons for believing that Verbal is Soze is as follows: 1. The gold lighter. Both Verbal and Soze have the same lighter. 2. Verbal is a convicted scammer, already picked up for fraud; he’s good at deception. 3. The composite sketch, the Hungarian gangster in the hospital pretty much described Verbal. 4. Verbal does not suffer from CP, it was just a cover to make him seem he was something he is not. These are just simple clues anyone can see with the initial viewing, but further review reveals more obscure clues. 1. The hat and coat Soze wears on the boat is hanging in the Argentinean’s room, so it’s easy to see where he got them. Now Keaton is shown wearing that hat & coat, but that was when Kujan was trying to convince Verbal that Keaton is Soze, but if you look closely, near the end is a very brief shot of Verbal wearing the hat, and if you watch the DVD with the writer & director commenting, one of them remarks “there’s the truth” when you see Verbal in the hat. 2. Even in the midst of a big made up story, which most of it was as Verbal told Kujan, there are elements of the truth, proven by Kobayashi picking Verbal up in the Jag as Kujan realized he had been duped by the “stupid cripple”, who turned out to be far smarter than he appeared. Kobayashi’s presence proved that they we in the whole thing together further proves that Verbal is Soze. If you really want to get Hollywood about this movie, when was the last time you saw the big boss pick up the minion? The boss never drives. So what do you think? Do you agree that Verbal = Soze, or do you have evidence that would prove otherwise? I think it’s clearly obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272/2 "2001-10-24T06:20:21Z")
I thought the final scene pretty much spelled it out. I never even figured this was a point of argument. Of course Verbal is Keyser. ---
**Author:** ![Smokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Smokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smokey)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272/3 "2001-10-24T06:26:34Z")
Funny you say that, I never thought there was any question about it either, but indeed there is. ---
**Author:** ![Smokey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@Smokey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smokey)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272/4 "2001-10-24T06:30:00Z")
If you want to see the arguments against it, check this out: [http://forum.granturismo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55942](http://forum.granturismo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55942) ---
**Author:** ![sidle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee59a6/32.png) [@sidle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sidle)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272/5 "2001-10-24T17:16:47Z")
Um. I am totally confused. of course Verbal is Soze. “Barbershop quartet in Skokie, Illinois” ?? Kobayashi picking him up? the fake limp? Whats the question? I need to go to your thread to see what the contraversy is about. Oh wait- I see what you’re saying. Its whether or not Verbal Kent is the fake name of a guy who also has created the fake name of Kaiser Soze, and who is actually someone else, or whether he actually, in real life, the person named Kaiser Soze. I have always been inclined towards the second explanation; that the person behind all this, played by Kevin Spacey, invented Kaiser Soze and Verbal Kent, and whoever else he needs to be, to mask his real identity. Who knows, though. I’ve only seen it twice. What a great movie, though! ---
**Author:** ![Syzygy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Syzygy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syzygy)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272/6 "2001-10-24T19:59:23Z")
I thought I remembered some inside info I read somewhere in this. It turns out it’s listed on [IMDB](http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0114814). “Soz” is Turkish for “word”, thus “Verbal” for “Soze”. Keyser Soze and Kevin Spacey have the same initials. It is because of this that many assume the character had been written for Spacey. Besides, like **Jack** , I was thinking “Well, duh” when I read the OP. Seems pretty cut-and-dried to me. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2001, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-usual-suspects-who-is-keyser-soze/89272/7 "2001-10-24T20:46:48Z")
well the fact that he repeats the line about getting picked up by soze 10 min after he leaves the station is a clue that hes not, but if I recall he says soze will “HAVE” him picked up afet he leaves the station, bah spacey was soze.