Glengarry Glen Ross Reviews

You know what’s a great way to make an entertaining movie? Give a series of juicy monologues and biting one-liners to a group of highly talented actors and point a camera at them. No fuss, just the joy of watching the greats knock out a few rounds with well-written material and play off of each other. Behold then Glengarry Glen Ross.

 

Yes, it doesn’t exactly open up the play much as it keeps its scope limited to a few interiors, but mainly the claustrophobic office that reverberates with pessimistic foreboding. But here’s the thing, director James Foley hired a great editor, Howard E. Smith, to make the rhythms of David Mamet’s dialog work in perfect sync with the cuts, close-ups, and various stylistic choices. Foley knows he doesn’t need to embellish much, he just needs to find the palpitations of the material and ride the wave to the climax of each scene.

 

Foley also assembled a group of actors that would make any director envious. Alec Baldwin rips into a memorable opening cameo that’s basically a warning shot of the brutish dialog and overheated toxic masculinity to come (“Coffee is for closers”). Then there’s Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, and Jonathan Pryce delivering reliably solid turns. Each of them bring a unique texture and color to the material with their distinct performing styles and personalities. But the two greatest performances belong to Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon.

 

Al Pacino got the sole Oscar nomination for the group, not undeservedly but more than likely having more to do with Scent of a Woman being released the same year, but it’s Jack Lemmon that lasts the longest in the mind. Hell, the best extended scene of consummate acting is a two-hander where they try to pull one over on Pryce. They develop a lived-in back-and-forth that is engaging to watch as they pick up subtle cues from each and deliver non-verbal tics like a quarterback giving away play ideas to his teammates. It’s a duet for the ages between two titans.

 

Lemmon already blessed us with a wide-range of memorable performances in classics like Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, The Odd Couple, and The China Syndrome. But he tops all of them here. He seems like he might breakdown in desperation and neurosis at any second, but he just keeps moving forward. His anxiety is palpable as he twists and turns to try and get one over on his colleagues. Survivalist instincts is pumping throughout his veins at all times, and a scene where he hopelessly tries to convince a man to buy real estate is a knockout of his persistence meetings an immovable object. It’s a late career masterpiece from one of America’s finest actors, one that makes us think we may have taken his mastery of the craft for granted during his lifetime.

 

This thread of anxiety and desperate is felt throughout Glengarry Glen Ross as these men work in a dead-end office chasing leads that a more pipe-dreams than anything else. They get through the day by hurling insults at each other with such imaginative and promiscuous vocabulary that it also takes on the form of musical theater. It’s an amazing feat and a credit to the synthesis of writer, director, material, and actors that we end up caring about any of these despicable characters. Even the pessimistic ending here would make the downers in other films blush for just how sour a note we leave on, but there’s no other imaginable way for the story to end. No with the world of trapped animals clawing at each other for survival that we’ve just spent two hours with.       

super weak story line. A puty regarding the nice line up. Pacino plays really great

Quando un film è girato bene e ha una morale, non importa il genere, la storia o gli attori, il messaggio arriverà a destinazione! e se non arriva comunque lascierà un "vuoto", un dubbio, qualcosa su cui riflettere.
Questo film non appartiene ad un genere che io adoro, diciamo quasi documentaristico-introspettivo, ma l'imponente cast di attoroni magistralmente guidato, riesce con la grande espressività e la fin troppo circoscritta ambientazione, ad aprire uno squarcio su un mondo non da tutti conosciuto, ritraendo magnificamente la dura vita lavorativa del rappresentante di commercio.
In questo caso, i messaggi recepiti a primo impatto sono piu di uno:
-La strada per il successo è in salita quindi bisogna sudarsela
-I falliti resteranno sempre tali(non condivisibile)
-Non esiste, giusto o sbagliato (""c'è una morale assoluta?"")
-Ci preoccupiamo troppo del passato e del futuro scordandoci di vivere il presente
-C'è sempre chi si lamenta di qualcosa ma anche chi non lo fa ha i suoi problemi
-è inutile lamentarsi se non si pongono delle critiche costruttive e non ci si viene in contro per risolvere il problema.
-La prima regola è il rispetto di se stessi
e molte altre "parabole"...
ma un altro punto sul quale si sofferma minuziosamente il regista, è sulla fragilità dell'uomo, inquadra infatti come ogni venditore cercando di non essere licensiato o di perdere la pole-position sulla lavagna, tenti in ogni modo di adulare, conquistare, "fregare" con svariati sofismi il cliente, che insicuro, esita, si rivolge all'avvocato o cambia idea mandando in fumo giorni di lavoro; per non parlare della rapina che conduce al fallimento uomini disperati che arrivati ad un bivio tentano il tutto per tutto.
E riallacciandomi con quanto detto all'inizio, a me in particolare, non è piaciuto tantissimo il film, ma devo riconoscere che mi ha lasciato con un vuoto(per il finale troppo netto), un piccolo dubbio(George Aaronow l'ha fatta franca?) e qualcosa su cui riflettere(dov'erano i cinesi? XD)...
quindi il messaggio è arrivato ;)

by Dane Youssef


A Well-played, well-written look at the bottom rung on society--salesman. Real-estate, exactly.


Yes, it's a "photographed play." Like just about every other play adaptation to the big screen... but it's so well done, you don't care. Like "The Odd Couple" or... "Lost In Yonkers..."


The actors thankfully move outside the office a bit (outside the building, in cars, phone booths, restaurants... and at one point, over to someone's house)


This movie could have been called "Life of A Salesman." Men who dedicate their lives to selling real estate. Land and so forth. It's not as easy and as coast-worthy as it all seems.


God, what a racket. These people are all so cynical, bitter and desperate. They're claustrophobic and turning on each other. Their whole source of income and life rely on these little cards. "Leads." Little cards with names, numbers and addresses of people who want to buy land. But some of them are so old...


A red-hot salesman from downtown (Alec Baldwin, in a role written especially for him) comes down to motivate, drill and berate everyone into bringing their numbers up. When another salesman makes the mistake of protesting against all the abuse and calling Blake on his rant, Blake decides to put him in his place.


He flashes his watch. He shows off his car. "I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? Mitch & Murray asked me to come down. To help get the numbers up. As a favor. I told them that the real favor would be to take my advice and fire you. Because a loser is a loser."


Then Baldwin shows the 'Glengarry Glen' leads. He holds them and shows them off to the other salesman like he's holding the royal crown jewels. The hope diamond. The holiest of holy grails. Well, to these guys... they are. Baldwin remarks smugly, "These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. To you, these are gold... and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away." I like when Ed Harris starts to protest of this guy's dressing-down and Baldwin snaps back. He shows no mercy. Drills right through him. This is some of the best Baldwin has ever done.


"You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch costs more than you car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing." He goes on and on, but I won't spoil it here.


Then he FINALLY drops the bombshell. "We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired."


And there are more than three salesman in the office. One way or another, a lot is going to be trimmed. Not necessarily fat. Just... trimmed. A lot. To save money.


The characters are sharply drawn and in a story that is intertwined and sown together with skill and surprise. The all-star cast does the best with Mamet's angry, fierce and realistic speak (the adaptation is by Mamet himself, from his Pulitzer-Prize winning play). Pacino is (as always, blistering) as the star salesman who's landed the top of the board with his fresh catch James Linsk (Alan Arkin).


Ed Harris as Dave Moss is good as an angry, self-righteous salesman who's just such a outright blowhard asshole. An arrogant S.O.B. A great moment is when someone finally deflates him. Pops the big bag of hot air. Shows him to be scared and insecure underneath it all. His repeated cries of "Fuck you!" just reveal how truly desperate and insecure he truly is...


The buttoned-down office manager John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) who's "by the books to the core" and has never been out there, selling it, in the sh*t a day in his life. He's just a company man. "A secretary... and white bread" as some of the salesman in the office call him.


But the true breadwinner is the touching elderly Jack Lemmon as Sheldon "The Machine" Levene. Once the office golden boy, he was ahead and selling big week after week after week... reigning the very top of the board. The owners used to say things like "That car, that trip to Bermuda... you bought that for me..." Now he just can't sell. He sounds so grandfatherly and princely on the phone... you want to trust him so much. He's like Santa Claus.


But Shelley cannot find anyone who wants to buy. All the name and address cards ("leads," they're called) are older than Lemmon. Many have moved on and found better service elsewhere. The machine is longer up and running and Lemmon does a magnificent job of painting him a portrait of a burned-out star. A has-been. It's painful to look into those big sad dog-eyes of his...


He at one point goes to the house of someone who just doesn't want to buy. That's understandable, isn't it? Hey, how many times have you met a salesman who just won't get it. But Shelley's desperate. He bargains. He pleads. He drops his price. No sale. His heart seems to be breaking when...


There are many a great moment in "GGL." Where Baldwin drills the troops, when Harris is hoisted on his own petard, when Lemmon works his old time magic with potential customers... and when a salesman pulls a hustling con on a customer... all to have one misunderstanding--a split second blow the deal.


It would be unfair to go on with how the rest plays out. Suffice to say that it is worth watching again and again and again. The whole movie. It's a hard-boiled classic. Look for it wherever you can. Ask for it by name: "Glengarry Glen Ross." The salesman mantra isn't just for the salesman--it's the way of life: "Sell or Die."


--Choosing To Sell, Dane Youssef



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