Keyser Soze
The Only Suspect

"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"
One line that defines the man, the greatest conman in cinematic history. Tracy Whitney, D B Cooper, Daniel Ocean, Charles Milverton, Gasper LeMerc are no doubt all great conmen in their own right but if you ask me Keyser Soze is like the solitaire that adorns the Con Crown.

My biggest regret after watching that movie was how in the world I could have missed it. I saw it 12 years after its release, that too even when it had been consistently rated among the top 20 movies of all time on IMDb. The whole movie is nothing but the metamorphosis of Keyser Soze from a "mythical" mafia kingpin to a factual embodiment of the con spirit. The movie is not about Kevin Spacey, its not about the quick witted and enthralling interrogation session, its not about 5 men fencing gems : Its about Keyser Soze and that is it.

Keyser Soze literally transforms to "Verbal Emperor" in Turkish and he lives upto every alphabet of his name. Fabricating a truly convincing tale in front of a ruthless and eccentric FBI agent is no mean deed.

You are struck with a sense of terror the moment Keyser Soze is introduced as a mafia kingpin. It is said that --
When he was a small-time Turkish drug runner, a rival Hungarian gang tried to seize his territory and business by taking his family hostage, raping his wife, and traumatizing his children in the process. Söze, in response, killed his own family and all but one of the threatening gangsters, who is spared in order to carry the news of the event to the rest of the gang.

If you think I am the only one going gaga over Keyser soze, you are in for shock.
In popular culture, you actually have a phrase as "Keyser Sozed" which basically means to be fooled by someone's identity or agenda. And then any movie or book for that matter that tend to redefine the facts towards the climax contrary to what had been presented before ( which in retrospect is actually a standard literary technique ) are said to suffer from the "Keyser Soze Syndrome".


To conclude, if you idolize conmen, factual or fictional, and still have never heard of Keyser Soze then as they would say it in hindi, "Chullu bhar pani mein doob mar".