Review of Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) by Marty H — 13 Jun 2013

If you want to see a bunch of men screaming obscenities at each other than this movie is for you. How low can you make the other man feel? How pissed off can you get? How loud can you shout? A script that calls for this kind of work is perfect for Al Pacino. He plays Romo, the office's top real estate salesman. Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, and Kevin Spacey are all vultures squawking at each other to determine who is going to get the biggest piece of meat. "The Leads" are what they are all after. Each man sits and stares in silent amazement as the boss Alec Baldwin shits on everyone in the office and hands the leads over to office supervisor Kevin Spacey. These office jerks obsess over these leads, plot to steal and kill over these leads, betray each other over these leads-all for the love of their job? How can that be? They behave like addicts scrapping to get that last pull from the pipe until they encounter real people, then its showtime and they have to front like they have no problems whatsoever.

I just returned from a vacation that involved a few mandatory hours of sitting with a handful of real estate salesmen to listen to their pleas. After long hours of nonsense, they finally let us leave. This movie shows the true colors of some of these salesmen and heavily exaggerates what their behavior and relationships might be in the office. Grimy capitalist salesmen, trying to lie their way to the top ranks thinking about themselves and themselves only.

If your workplace is full of morons or you hate your boss and you just wish you could speak freely to their face, then watching this movie might do something for you. There is literally no holds barred in this script and people are humiliated.

A few random mentions:

Alec Baldwin appeared early and was great. I would have liked to see one more appearance towards the end but he never showed up ?

Jack Lemmon's character Shelly I believe was the motivation behind Simpsons' character "Gill". Poor ole Gill...

Kevin Spacey took the grunt of mostly everyone's shit. He is an easy target, as he gets shitted on in 75% of the movies he's in.

Ed Harris and Alan Arkin were (meh), and Al Pacino was hilarious! Very memorable performance for Pacino in his very longstanding acting career.

4/5.