Starring Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, and Chazz Palminteri. Rated restricted.

Now playing at.the Granville 7, Park & Tilford, and Station Square 5

Twentyish director Bryan Singer is often likened to Quentin Tarantino, but his fast-paced style could more profitably be compared to that of such late-'40s/early-'50s film-noir masters as Rudolph Mat? and Samuel Fuller. The Usual Suspects expertly combines the complicated narrative structure of D.O.A. with the quirky, hard-boiled characters of Pickup on South Street, and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie provides the cast with the kind of smart-ass lines that Humphrey Bogart might have quit smoking for.

One of the film's many pleasures consists of figuring out who the most important hero/villain really is. Of the five career criminals who meet in a New York police lineup, the most important would appear to be Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), an ex-cop suspected of having a hand in virtually everything corrupt this side of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. As Keaton's crippled con-man buddy (Kevin Spacey) tells it, however, Keaton was basically an innocent man who went along for the heist after relentless police surveillance scuppered his chances of forging a legitimate career as a restaurateur. He was the man with the plan, in fact.

Although at least one obsessed special police agent (Chazz Palminteri) doesn't buy this story for a second, he is even more dubious about the legend of Keyser Soz?. Of Turkish origin, this bogeymanlike bad guy is allegedly so vindictive, when he seeks revenge he makes a point of killing even the people who owe his enemies money. If not for the massacre of approximately 30 people aboard a Hungarian freighter docked near L.A., Palminteri's plainclothes Doubting Thomas would be inclined to dismiss this underworld ogre altogether.

Told largely in the form of flashbacks, The Usual Suspects constantly upsets the viewer's expectations. Soz?'s right-hand man, for instance, is said to be a "Limey" lawyer, although his accent is Indian, his surname is Japanese, and his interpreter is Irish (Pete Postlethwaite). To make things even more confusing, cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel immerses this button-down spectre in so much shadow we can't even get a fix on his skin colour.

Aside from being a crime caper and an action film, The Usual Suspects is also a shell game. What you see is not necessarily what you get.