Storyline Clues From The Opening of The Usual Suspects

What clues do you get about the rest of the storyline from the opening 5 minutes?

In the first five minutes of "The Usual Suspects" there are a number of clues relating to the rest of the film. These include themes of crime or murder. We get this impression from what may occur later on in the film due to the following factors:

• A gun shot is heard without showing who or what was shot and who was behind the trigger. This leads us to believe that a crime/murder has been commited.
• Following on from the gun shot, we see that the boat it was heard from was set a light and in the previous clips before this we see a man pouring petrol around the floor and setting it alight while smoking. This makes us think that the man who was pouring the petrol initially was the one who was behind the gun and therefore set the boat alight. Also makes us think that the boat was set on fire as a coverup to a crime.
• While the boat is on fire we see a close up on some ropes and gun parts which doesn't lead us to believe anything unusual has happened yet although in the following shots we are taken to an interrogation scene in which we see a man being questioned about a boat containing stripped gun parts. This leads us to believe and question if what we have previously seen relates to this.

Taking this into consideration for use in our own opening we obviously don't want to give a lot away but we do want to make the audience question and try and figure out what will happen later on in the film. This effect will be vital to us as a group if we are to produce a successful opening full of mystery for our thriller opening.