 |
A boat, believed to have $91 million in cocaine on board, is docked at a pier in San Pedro, just south of L.A. Suddenly an enormous explosion rips through the still of the night and you know that whatever or whoever was unlucky enough to be on that boat was blown halfway to hell. Within hours, a charred floating carcass is all that's left. That, and twenty-seven dead bodies. Miraculously, there are two survivors: a Hungarian gangster who lies, clinging to life and burnt to a crisp, in a hospital bed; and Roger "Verbal" Kint, a crippled con-man from New York.
As U.S. Customs Special Agent David Kujan conducts his grueling interagation, Kint weaves a tale that begins six weeks earlier, at a police lock-up in New York. Five felons, accused of hijacking a truckload of gun parts in Queens, are brought in for a line-up. The cops don't have much in the way of evidence, so the five are held overnight.
Five criminals. Five criminal minds. One night. One plan. They are suspects. Strangers. With one thing in common: Keyser Soze -- a criminal so feared, so fabled, even the icy glares of these cold-blooded killers burn with terror at the mere mention of his name.
And now, the only one who can identify Keyser Soze, believed to be at the heart of this dockside massacre, is the hospitalized Hungarian. So while an FBI sketch artist struggles to complete his rendering of Soze before the witness dies, Verbal Kint sits in the D.A.'s office, taking Kujan through the steps that led him there.
The inquisition is complicated. Kujan is relentless. Hour after hour he probes. Kint wavers and, finally, breaks. In the end, a pathetic, low-life con-man is outwitted by a smart, shrewd U.S. government agent.
Or is he?