Glengarry Glen Ross | Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon | NEWSFLASH: Salesmen are whores! THIS IS NEEDED...

Glengarry Glen Ross | Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon | "Hit the bricks, pal!" if you don't enjoy this movie!

DVDs:

Glengarry Glen Ross

	Glengarry Glen Ross Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon Lions Gate, 2002 average customer review:based on 276 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

NEWSFLASH: Salesmen are whores! THIS IS NEEDED VIEWING IN OUR SUBPRIME CRISIS

I mean, watch Pacino con the john in the Chinese restaurant bar, pure drinks and charm and chat and seduction from his wife at home. This is salesmanship.

Capitalism turns us all in to sharks and thieves and liars and greedy individuals incapable of honesty and cooperation and community, into whores and assassins.

See the subprime crisis, bringing down at last the whole bushanomic house of cards.

Enron has won. The death of Enron was the canary in the cage. The Silverado Savings and Loan scandal only rewarded Neil Bush with a fortune. We did not make our economic system more just and honest and open and fair. We legislated greater secrecy and legitimized our thievery.

And now we pay the piper. Subprime deceptions bring down the whole house of cards. The USA is no longer a leading economic indicator; the tail shall now wag the failing dog, violently.

This film is metonymy for the entire moral and ethical and economic failure. This film is brilliant. This film must be seen as our ship of state sinks, as the band still plays on this Titanic. See this film.

This Tenth Anniversary Special Edition contains two disks. One disk has widescreen; the second disk has "full screen" which is best avoided. Together the two disks have enough extras to keep any film buff happy for days, for years. Disk one includes a brilliant and long tribute to Jack Lemmon, including words from his son and from his golf partner, from the director and from himself. It is enough to make you seek out other Lemmon films you have forgotten, including Save the Tiger, Missing, The China Syndrome (Special Edition), Days of Wine and Roses, Long Day's Journey Into Night or even the hilarious and tragic Bell, Book and Candle in which the grey and grim vampire businessmen, who reach their inevitable self-destruction in this film, conquer once colorful New York, rendering delightful witches zombie housewives unquestionably servicing their economic immoralties.

The extras on this two disk set also included an excellent interview with Alex Baldwin, and Mr. Arkin. Film students will appreciate the long commentaries by the Spanish cinematographer Juan Ruiz Anchia, forced to produce compelling camera work within the confines of a crowded office space, evocative of Rojo Amanecer, and under heavy rain. This powerful camera work in itself prohibits the watching of the "full screen" version as so much visual information, composition and balance is missing. Gratefully disk one here presents the widescreen version as meant to be seen.

These commentaries (which do no accompany as usual a full presentation of the movie, but have excerpts as background, a rather frustrating experience as we long to see Pacino in his full glorious performance, not as wallpaper) also include a rather long and unique speech by the production designer, of compelling interest most to the student of film, and of New York. The report of the fire on set due to the constant rain and the hot lighting cables provides some interest at least.

There is no commentary from Pacino; for this we might turn to his Pacino: An Actor's Vision (Chinese Coffee / Looking for Richard / The Local Stigmatic) which is valuable for his take on Shakespeare's Richard III. Nevertheless, the generous extras also include cast and staff bio's, including a very substantial and comprehensive multi-page report on Al and the rest. Please see as well his excellent William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice with Jeremy Irons.

The cast is brilliant and the best that can be had, with Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin, and Ed Harris as well as Kevin Spacey. Ed Harris of course may now be known through the extras on his great movie Walker - Criterion Collection, as well as seen in the revealing glimpse of returning vets Jacknife, his personal project on Jackson Pollock - Love & Death on Long Island, A History of Violence (New Line Platinum Series), and hundreds of other Hollywood productions such as The Right Stuff (Two-Disc Special Edition).

You also find long interviews with salesmen, from Fuller Brush to real estate, and saleswomen, and you wonder how and why we ever allow them to deceive us so willingly. We are a nation of suckers. There is also an interesting if very low budget documentary on a platitude pronouncing used car, flea market, used furniture impresario, great for the weird old haircuts is little else. Now we have that antique roadshow selling us the same junk.

My only problem with this movie is the editing, and the excessive quick cuts which leave me seasick. I have been spoiled by Director Alex Cox's excellent and effective master shot technique which keeps the camera running for the full ten minutes the technology permits, and is shown to good effect in his Highway Patrolman and Revengers Tragedy as well as in embryonic form in the Walker - Criterion Collection mentioned above. As this Glengarry Glen Ross was originally a play, holding the camera without cuts, and with two characters seated together in the compelling and real and potent dialogue would have been more effective than swinging our perspective violently from talking head to talking head in quick and constant cuts, destroying the deep rhythm of the percussive talk. At such moments turn up the sound and close your eyes to avoid vertigo.

Otherwise excellent, and a legend for our disastrous times. This is the disaster movie to end all disaster movies, and how our nation collapses upon itself now.

See this film with understanding. See this film. The Cocoanuts [Groucho Marx and Harpo Marx], one of the first full length movie comedies, also had to do with selling swamp land in Florida, as Groucho promised: "And you can get Stucco! Boy, can you get Stucco!" See this last film still selling swampland and still getting us stucco.

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"Hit the bricks, pal!" if you don't enjoy this movie!

In my years of watching all genres of movies, none has ever struck me like this one. It's the most intense and thrilling flick that doesn't involve a moment's violence. The cast is perfect: Al Pacino as the confident, slick Ricky Roma; Jack Lemmon as the down-on-his-luck Shelley "The Machine" Levene; Ed Harris as the hot-headed yet shrewd Dave Moss; Alan Arkin as the ever-insecure George Aronow; Kevin Spacey as Mitch & Murray's "Company Man" Jon Williamson; and Alec Baldwin as Mr. Limpkin, the perfect symbol of upper-management arrogance and cruelty. Never has a movie gone so far with basically just a half-dozen people on screen at any one time. (A then unknown Jonathan Pryce has a supporting role as James Link, one of Roma's clients/victims, but he's vastly overshadowed in this movie.)

The storyline is one of an ever-frustrating vicious circle: real estate salesmen in a struggling economy are trying to get on a hot streak again. Middle management of Mitch & Murray is no help, only promising that "new leads" will be introduced. In walks Limpkin, there to supposedly give them a pep talk. Instead it's an insult-fest: Shelley goes over to get a cup of coffee and is immedeately chastised: "Coffee is for closers only!" Limpkin further attacks Levene, snidely remarking, "You call yourself a salesman, you son of a b****?" One after another, these salesmen are ripped apart as being weak and incompetent. The company sales competition is then reviewed....first prize, a Cadillac El Dorado; second prize, a set of steak knives; third prize? You're fired! Then, just as quickly as the new Glengarry leads are introduced, Limpkin reveals that they're not for "losers" like them: "To give them to you would be like throwing them away. They're for closers." Baldwin's performance is brilliant here. His combination of intensity and cool cockiness has the effect of a boxer's punch: brief but stinging. And it helps set the tone for the movie's story of how the other salesmen react to his not-so-pleasant visit.

Meanwhile, the one salesman on a hot streak, Ricky Roma, shows why as he casually talks a random man from the local restaurant (Pryce) about life, loves, and, eventually real estate. His approach to closing is more suddle: get to know the person, buy them plenty to drink, pretend to care and empathize with them, all the while sizing them up for the deal. At the same time, Moss concocts a plan to break into Mitch & Murray's and steal the new leads...with the help of a co-conspirator. Dave needs a second person to do the dirty work, since he's been so vocal in his criticsm of M & M's handling of sales, so he works George over mentally to go along and illegally swipe the leads and sell them to a rival real estate agency. Shelley, after failing to convince Williamson to loan him a couple of new leads, is out trying to close the old-fashioned way: going door-to-door. In one scene, probably the most uncomfortable in the whole film, Levene does his best to smooth-talk a young husband to buy land, using all sorts of jargon to make the deal look and sound sweet, when both he and the young man know that no deal will be made. In a moment, it crystalizes what hard-luck the salesmen (except Roma) are going through.

The next morning, the robbery of the leads has indeed taken place, and personal situations change: the files for Roma's previous closings are also missing, along with every phone in the office. Each salesman is being interrogated by police, to seemingly no avail of finding answers. Shelley then enters, excited over a sale he's finally made. The experience is almost like a conquest: he's more confident,cheerful, and, like Roma, bust Williamson's butt for his lack of sales experience, among other things. From here I won't give much more away: through a series of events, each salesman gains and loses something. All I'll say is that George probably ended up with the steak knives!

I know I went into long detail, but I love this movie!! Writer/Screenplay David Mamet obviously worked in this field at one point; there is much attention to detail, between the sales-improving corporate-speak of "A.B.C." and "A.I.D.A", to the indignant sign above Williamson's office which reads "SALESMEN ARE BORN NOT MADE", I'm willing to bet that this story had to come from some real-life experience. I also thought the movie was actually enhanced by the exclusion of two things: scenes of the robbery itself, and when Shelley "closes" the deal with the Nyhborgs (I probably spelled that wrong, but so what?) This is a movie that is relevant in any era or any business; it shows the downfall of what was once considered an eternally existent profession. Substitute "real estate" with "car" or "insurance" salesmen and it would still have the same effect. Funny, brutal, with a twist of irony at the end, this is a movie I could watch every day and never be sick of.

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The Ultimate Sales Movie!!

If your in sales, then you have to get this movie. If your in management and you have people under you, then get this movie. The concept of the script is well written and the actors are great. Alec Baldwin was incredible in this movie. He has passion, wit, confidence and very inspiring. I am in sales and this said it all...greed, money, survival, and doing what is right. Bravo! Bravo!

ASTOUNDING in every way!

The greatest ensemble ever convened? Maybe, anyway it gets my vote.
The visual of the "MACHINE", (Lemon)framed by the door, standing in the rain will haunt you forever.
Jack was maybe the best ever.
To outshine his costars, especially THESE costars seems impossible.
Watch him!
He makes this tricky mamet dialog, appear to be a cakewalk.
unreal...

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Al Pacino's performance the stuff of cinematic wet dreams.

Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon star in this hugely memorable film. Oh, and some guy named Al Pacino as well. Glengarry Glen Ross has become the type of film that slowly has sprung forth legend and arguably some of the most memorable lines in movie history, most notably Alec Baldwin's, "Put that coffee DOWN! Coffee's for closers!"

The plot (based on David Mamet's award winning play) deals with a number of real estate salesman and a day at the office that acts as a microcosm of what drives them. With pressure from the higher-ups downtown to close some deals, some will rise to the challenge while others will crumble under its avalanche.

Aside from the sub-two hundred f-bombs throughout the film, I enjoyed GGR, and honestly, found the film to suffice all my "angst against The Man" needs when I saw it a few years ago on TV. Al Pacino shines brightly as his character's lines flow with ferocious splendor throughout the film, with particular emphasis on the last fifteen minutes of the film when he proceeds to needle Ed Harris' character with a systematic verbal bout that made me stand up and applaud with cathartic approval. A very powerful film that will doubtlessly make your day a little more fun for having watched it.

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