Movie Reviews

Glengarry Glen Ross takes place over two days as a group of three real-estate salesmen desperately attempt to "close a sale" or risk losing their job the following week. Very few people will simply purchase an expensive piece of real estate as an investment; however, the manager of the sales office (Kevin Spacey) is able to acquire certain "leads" that indicate individuals who may be likely to make such a purchase, and it is these leads that the salesmen pursue when trying to make their sales. The problem is, these leads seem to vary greatly in quality, and the three salesmen are suffering from a long slump of poor sales because, as they see it, they've been given a series of crappy leads.

The main focus of the movie is the difficulties that the three salesmen go through in trying to close a deal with the poor leads. Adding further conflict is a fourth member of the sales force (played by Al Pacino) who has been making some very successful, large sales. Furthermore, the office manager has also just acquired a number of exceptionally promising new leads, but he will only hand them out to the salesman who closes the most deals over the next week or so.

It's an interesting concept, and screenwriter David Mamet throws in a bunch of really energetic dialogue. The salesman played by Jack Lemmon is the most interesting of the bunch. He seems to be a bit of a lonely old man, and there's something both amusing and sad about how his whole personality and tone of voice shifts into a smooth, upbeat high-gear when trying desperately to make a sale.

I think I had two problems with this movie, though. The first has to do with what I can only describe as a sort of 'theatricallity' in some of the dialogue that didn't sit too well with me. Glengarry Glen Ross is actually based on a play (also written by David Mamet), so I suppose that's understandable. Based on other Mamet films I've seen, it's obvious that he really has a love for dialogue, and he's a really good writer. I don't know whether it's the dialogue itself, though, or the way it's delivered by the actors, but there often seems to be some quality of Mamet's dialogue that just doesn't convince me.

The second issue I had was the ending. The movie really starts to get interesting near the end, and then just as I thought it would keep that level of interest up (or increase it even more), the movie ends rather abruptly. I know movies don't have to tie everything up neatly at the end (in fact, the best of movies usually don't do that), but this just seemed too abrupt for my liking.

This was a good movie, but I have a feeling I would've liked the original theatrical play better.