Plot
While lying badly wounded on a ship docked in San Pedro Bay, career criminal Dean Keaton is shot dead by a shadowy figure whom he calls "Keyser." The police recover 27 bodies and two survivors from the ship: Arkosh Kovash ("Ákos Kovács"), a Hungarian mobster hospitalized with severe burns; and Roger "Verbal" Kint, a physically disabled con artist. U.S. Customs agent Dave Kujan arrives in Los Angeles to interrogate Verbal in a borrowed office belonging to LAPD police sergeant Jeff Rabin. Meanwhile, FBI agent Jack Baer visits Kovács in hospital.
In an extended flashback, Verbal relates how he and Keaton, and their associates, arrived on the ship. Six weeks earlier, in New York, Keaton and Verbal were arrested and placed in a police lineup alongside fellow criminals Michael McManus, Fred Fenster and Todd Hockney. None of them admits to participating in the truck hijacking they're accused of and are returned to a holding cell, where McManus proposes a heist to get revenge on the NYPD. They rob a jewel smuggler being escorted by corrupt cops, netting millions in emeralds. Leaks to the press result in more than fifty policemen being arrested. The group travels to California to fence the jewels through a man named Redfoot, who connects them to another jewel heist. The heist goes badly, and they're forced to kill their target, who is carrying synthetic heroin.
The men learn the job was arranged by a lawyer named Kobayashi, who claims to be a representative of Keyser Söze—a mysterious Turkish crime lord. According to legend, Söze killed his own family while they were held hostage by his Hungarian rivals, then massacred his enemies. Söze subsequently vanished, conducting business from the shadows via underlings, most unaware they work for him. Law enforcement and the criminal underworld regards him as a fearsome urban legend, unsure if he even truly exists.
Kobayashi tells the men that they attracted Söze's attention by unwittingly stealing from him. He will spare their lives if they destroy a shipment of cocaine brought to San Pedro Bay by Argentinian drug dealers for sale to a Hungarian gang. After Fenster is killed attempting to flee, and the others fail to intimidate Kobayashi in his office, they agree to the job.
During Kujan's interrogation, he learns there was no cocaine on the ship, and Söze was seen on board. At the hospital, Baer learns that Kovács has seen Söze, and a sketch artist begins drawing him. At the conclusion of Verbal's flashback, he and his companions attack the ship and kill numerous gangsters before discovering there is no cocaine onboard. A mysterious figure kills Hockney, McManus, Keaton and a prisoner in one of the ship's cabins, then sets fire to the ship as Verbal looks on from the dock.
Kujan learns the prisoner killed on the ship was a smuggler who escaped prosecution by claiming he could identify Söze. Instead of cocaine, the Argentinians were planning to sell the smuggler to Söze's rivals. The smuggler's lawyer was Edie Finneran, Keaton's girlfriend, who was recently murdered. Armed with this information, Kujan deduces that Keaton was actually Keyser Söze: he organized the assault on the boat as a pretext for assassinating the smuggler and faking his death. Verbal confesses that Keaton was behind everything, but refuses to testify in court. Verbal's bail is posted, and he is released.
Moments later, Kujan realizes that Verbal fabricated his entire story, improvising on the spot by piecing together details from random items in Rabin's cluttered office. Verbal walks outside, loses his limp and flexes his supposedly disabled hand. As Kujan races outside in pursuit, a fax arrives at the police station with the sketch artist's facial composite of Söze, which reveals Verbal Kint is actually Keyzer Söze. Seconds ahead of Kujan, Verbal gets in a car driven by "Kobayashi" and departs.
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