By Geno McGahee
There are rare occasions when the best actors come together on a project for the sake of the project. These are usually labors of love where the film is guaranteed to not make a lot of money and may just lose money. The 1992 drama “GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS” actually lost about 3 million at the box office, but it’s a tremendous film with great acting and some of the best deliveries ever by Al Pacino. I could have watched 90 minutes of Al Pacino yelling profanities at Kevin Spacey.
Now before Alec Baldwin was trying to make a living with a bad and unfunny Donald Trump impression, he was actually an amazing actor. I sort of blame CAT IN THE HAT for his downfall. He was never the same after being part of that nonsense. Then you have the roughing up paparazzi and being a dick on an airplane, but that’s immaterial…so I’ll move on. Baldwin plays “Blake”, a total prick that works for the real estate company and just lays into the team of salesmen that are trying desperately to sell property and are mostly coming up empty. Blake is an enforcer and says that the one that sells the least has got to go and that puts plenty of pressure on this unstable team.
Most offended by the approach of Blake is Dave Moss (Ed Harris). He gets up and storms around the office, noting that nobody should be tearing into him and the others like that. A few moments later, John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) shows up and gives each of the salesmen leads, but they are all stale and have been tried time and time again. Williamson gets most of the heat from the boys and they want part of the good leads that are locked in the file cabinet because they know that the ones they have are not going to get any returns.
Along with Dave Moss, the other salesmen include George (Alan Arkin), Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) and Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon). Roma has an edge over the rest, but his deals are still one shaky ground. Shelley used to be a closer, but he hasn’t been able to get it going in a long time and his approach is intrusive and ineffective, but accurate too. I’ve dealt with these salesmen assholes that try to tell you how they’re doing you a favor because they like you and so forth. I felt really bad for Shelley though, and Jack Lemmon played the role so tremendously.
George and Dave meet up for a beer and come up with a plan to break into the office and steal the good leads. Dave is a leader and George is very lost and seems vulnerable to this plan. When the office is broken into, it’s easy to suspect George immediately, but this film has some tricks up its sleeve. When Ricky Roma returns to work, his world and sales begin to crumble when a customer elects to back out. Making matters worse, the detectives are grilling every member of the team, playing bad cop/bad cop.
The team tells off Williamson over and over again. Shelley tells him to kiss his ass and then Roma tells him that he doesn’t care “whose cousin you are or whose dick you’re sucking”, to the poor guy. In defense of Williamson, he was only trying to do his job and he had to keep order. Roma seemed out of line with some of the things he said, but man can Pacino deliver!
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS is a great film with great performances across the board. Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Al Pacino, Ed Harris and yes, Alec Baldwin, own this film from start to finish. What a tremendous drama and a sad look at the sales business in bad times. I have a feeling that the writer of this film probably experiences this sort of job in a past life. I highly recommend this.
Rating: 8.5/10
