Glengarry Glen Ross (1992,
dir. By James Foley). Brilliant. Brilliant acting, writing, swearing, you name
it, this film probably has it. The film stars Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin,
and Jack Lemmon as four real estate salesman who work without consciences (and
filters) and find different times to disrespect their exasperated boss played
by Kevin Spacey. The film centers around two days in the life of these men;
they’ve just been threatened by a higher-up that if they don’t meet a sales
quota then they are going to be fired. Thus the panic ensues. Harris imbues
his character with an angry, “it’s not my fault I’m unsuccessful” attitude and
his encounters with the other characters are tense and explosive. Arkin’s
character is at the total opposite of the spectrum as an unconfident failure
who just hopes to keep his job. Lemmon and Pacino occupy different spectrums as
well as Lemmon is the defeated man still hoping to make a living and Pacino as
the success he once was. The movie is best remembered for the monologue from
the higher-up played by an arrogant and unforgiving Alec Baldwin. The film, simply
put, is brilliant.
JV's comments: Can't disagree with anything here. The movie is brilliant, and while I won't quibble with Al Pacino's Oscar nomination, Jack Lemmon and Alec Baldwin probably deserved one more. A lot of people today believe this is Lemmon's best performance, which is saying quite a lot when you consider his history. And some might quibble that Baldwin was in the movie for less than 10 minutes, but trust me - they are 10 of the most incendiary minutes ever committed to film. The acting is so good in this film that one could reasonably argue that Kevin Spacey gives the 6th-best performance - behind all those mentioned above, as well as Jonathan Pryce, who plays a nice enough guy who gets suckered by Pacino into buying something he doesn't want, doesn't need, and probably can't afford - the name of the game, with this crew.
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