Glengarry Glen Ross

Based on a play of the same name and written by David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross is a fast paced movie charting the working lives of real estate sales men. It is the best by far of its particular genre. Others may have better iconic status (Wall Street, Death of a Salesman), but this film goes deep into the psychology of selling and presents the results of its difficulties in a raw and uncompromising delivery.

It is impossible to separate this film from its writer as it has Mamet’s blueprint dialogue style all over it. As either director or writer he has been responsible for countless gems including The Untouchables, Heist, Ronin, Wag the Dog, The Verdict and House of Games. His style is clipped and edgy – crafted to make points without drama or heavy use of subtext. Mamet’s characters say what they mean and mean what they say – their dialogue is clear unambiguous and direct. This is particularly useful and consistent with the predominantly masculine worlds of crime, sales, poker, and politics. This makes a Mamet film a Mamet film no-matter who directs it.

[ReviewAZON asin="B00005JKG9" display="inlinepost"]GGR has in it a handful of men of varying ages and capabilities dealing with poor leads and weather whilst being overseen by their sales motivator Blake(Alex Baldwin), and Office Manager, Williamson (Kevin Spacey), played by an all star cast where Jack Lemmon, (in his last screen role) especially shines as Shelley ‘the machine’ Levine. In some respects his character is the epitome and personification of a lost time – all of the men here are anachronistic, even the top salesman, Ricky Roma (Al Pacino), seems like a relic from the eighties. The atmosphere is closer to the HBO series Mad Men (about ad executives in the fifties), than a foresight into modern working mores.

However, the telephone calls made to the leads in kiosks everyone and anyone will recognise who has been on the receiving end of a cold call from someone wanting to sell you something with the usual ‘one time offer’ pitch. A meeting is called for the men to come into the office for 7.30am in the morning the following day from the time the film begins (it covers 24hrs – or less). All the problems with the leads are to be resolved then: the motivation speech they receive is deadening.

Blake (Baldwin) is from down town the Head Office of Mitch and Murray – the real estate owners. The language is harsher than Wall Street sound bites.

He calls over to Levine ‘put down the coffee – coffee’s for closers only.’ The way of the next evening is pointed out to them in realistic straight shooting terms. They are all fired and have 1 week to recapture their jobs. No new leads. New leads will be given to closers only. Any bitching and moaning from the ranks is dealt with:

Blake: ‘Leads are weak???? – no, YOU are weak.

ABC – Always Be Closing

AIDA Attention, Interest, Decision, Action

Anyone who has worked in a corporate world and has had to take in a ton of shorthand business speak delivered in acronym will understand this totally. There’s more: George (Arkin) and Dave (Harris) complain….

Blake – to George ‘Good father?? Fuck you – go home and play with the kids.

‘Do you know what it takes to sell real estate?’ It takes balls of steal.’

He holds the new leads in pink wrapped in a ribbon to torment the sales force with.

‘These are the new leads – these are the Glengarry leads.’ ‘But you don’t get them because giving them to you is just throwing them away.’ ‘They’re for closers.’

Boiler Room, the movie about Chop Shop young sales men with Vin Deisel has the same kind of dynamic unforgiving language but not the same kind of resonance to the characters. Directly after this motivation inspired ball breaking, Levine has to take a call from the hospital where his daughter resides. She needs her father both financially and emotionally. He has to tell the person on the end of the phone that he won’t be there to see her that evening.

And all the time it rains and rains and rains. The external shots of that evening look like an Edward Hopper painting – the streets full of loneliness and isolation with neon streaking across wet puddled pavement. The overhanging jazz score imbues the environment with moody atmospherics.

The men have different responses to what their challenges are: Levine is desperate, George and Dave (Arkin and Harris), are bitchy and frustrated, whereas Roma (Pacino) has always been the sophisticated urban carnivore: he isn’t at the breakfast meeting – he is the top closer. Roma doesn’t use the leads but attacks his prey in a social environment and wraps his pitch in a milieu of social observation and modern philosophy. His prey in this instance is James Lingk (Jonathon Price) drinking with Roma in a bar. He’s being closed without realising it. A lamb to the slaughter.

Levine tries to bring the cold Williamson in on a deal and tries to pitch to a couple on the phone – and to the man in person, to no avail.

George/Dave discuss at length the prospect of going it alone – or breaking into the office for the leads and trash the joint to show the masters who is boss.

The following morning the office has been robbed the police are there. Pacino is still trying to conduct life as normal especially when James comes in and asks for the three day post deal waver at the behest of his wife. The interchange of dialogue between all of the men at this point is dynamic, revealing and interesting. There are considerable power shifts with each conversation. All are trying to keep the sales environment going with a police presence in the office – with a very nervous James wanting to cancel his cheque.

Williamson intervenes and ruins the deal culminating in Levine revealing himself by trying to give Williamson some old timer advice. Watching Lemmon’s acting here is watching a man at the top of his game: he goes form being gung ho – to pleading within 2/3 minutes. He is told by Williamson that the deal he made that day is invalid as the people are instable.

Williamson: ‘The people are insane – they just like talking to sales men.’

It has a bigger effect than the prospect of prison for him. The devastation in Levine is palpable: Jack Lemmon is stupendously good as the desperate old timer down on his luck still clinging on to the vestiges of his manhood acquired from past glories. By the close of the film he is a tattered wreck, a loser. He knows he’s done. But there again, to an extent all of them are. Roma rightly states:

‘We are the members of a dying breed: that’s why we should stick together.’

Gail Spencer