A burnt-out ship has been discovered in a Los Angeles harbour along with 27 dead bodies. US customs agent Dave Kujal (Chazz Palminteri) is working the case and thinks his best chance is to interrogate the one survivor of the shipboard massacre, 'Verbal' Kint (Kevin Spacey). Sitting in an office at police headquarters, Kint begins to tell his story, and the more he says, the more Kujal becomes convinced that mythical master criminal Keyser Soze is the man behind it all.