#3 GlenGarry Glen Ross - Review

Glengarry Glen RossGod I love this film. A film about four salesmen desperately trying to survive in a world that doesn't want them or what they are selling, has no business being as good as it is. Pacino, Lemmon, Arkin, Harris, Spacey. I can end my post right there and everyone should want to go search this film out. The playwright David Mamet wrote the script after spending some time as a real estate salesman, in an office not unlike the one used as the main location for the film.  These men are the snake-oil salesmen of their generation, the type of guys who can be your best friend, sell you $90,000 worth of swampland in Florida, then evaporate into thin air with your money and their bonus. At least, that's how it used to be for these men, like Shelley "The Machine" Levine (Jack Lemmon). Once a top seller for his faceless bosses Mitch & Murray, he has hit a dry spell, a slump that he may not get himself out. Lemmon is in full effect here, in my opinion giving his best post The Apartment performance of his career. With a sick wife and a daughter in college, the Machine is stalling, and desperate. His is a heartbreaking story, only made more frustrating by his stubbornness. Glengarry Glen Ross

Mamet's language is sharp and truthful. These men sing his coarse, vulgar dialogue like a back-alley opera. You can see the actors relish each and every syllable, giving career defining performances. This is Al Pacino in the early 90's, and you can see the Scent of a Woman "hoo-ha" monster just begging to come out. Alan Arkin is as nervous as ever, and Ed Harris is a man pushed to his limits. Those limits are in the form of a salesman's bread and butter, the "leads." The leads are those little slips of paper your wife always fill out at chinese restaurants hoping to when a free cruise, but all they really are is a way for businesses like Mitch & Murray to get your information and sic there frothing hounds on you. Well, M&M are withholding the new leads from their sales force, basically disabling them from doing their jobs. Instead what the men get are the old leads, with names they have seen over and over again for the past two years, and yet are expected to do their job and sell sell sell.

What we experience is the complete meltdown of a man, not only financially and professionally, but also the complete destruction of a man's id. Every level of ego is slowly and dramatically put to the test, and then subsequently murdered. As in life, 1st place prize is a brand new Cadillac, 2nd place prize is a set of steak knives, and 3rd place is your fired.