Review of Glengarry Glen Ross

Introduction

Glengarry Glen Ross (references to real estate developments in the movie) is a film revolving around 24 hours in the life of 4 real estate salesmen in a dingy office in Chicago and their office manager. Although the salesmen have names, they don`t really matter. What matters is their archetypes. We have the up and coming salesman on a roll (Al Pacino), the old expert who has lost his touch and is scrabbling in desperation for a deal (Jack Lemmon), the perpetually angry malcontent (Ed Harris) and the weak loser (Alan Arkin). The office is managed in a cold and unsympathetic fashion by Kevin Spacey.

With the exception of Pacino, these guys haven`t been closing as many deals as their bosses would like. Thus, they bring in a … motivator, in the form of Alec Baldwin, who abuses Lemmon, Harris and Arkin for 5 minutes. He tells them that they have all been fired and that they have one week to earn their job back. One of their defences is that they have been given useless leads (possibly true) and that things would be different if they were able to work with good leads. Like the Glengarry leads. Baldwin has brought these with him and left instructions with Spacey to only give the good leads to Closers.

This is the last straw and they react in various ways - plead with the boss, rage impotently, snipe at their colleagues, plot revenge.

Then, the office gets burgled and the Glengarry leads disappear and tensions come to a head.

Video

The video is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio and is adequate, no more, no less. While the image is occasionally a bit soft, it has been given a generally decent transfer.

The film is really an office-bound talking head piece and the set design is trying for a very naturalistic look. That said, the film always looks good, especially during the rain drenched scenes where the water seems to be leeching the life out of the protagonists.

Audio

The audio is presented in a basic stereo mix. The film is wholly dialogue driven so this is fine. The soundtrack is clear and the rapid-fire profanity (it is a Mamet film) is easily understood.

The soundtrack is written by James Newton Howard in full-on Jazz mode. It is melodic and moody and sounds fine. Although, other than the opening credits and an Al Jarreau song at the end, there is little incidental music.

Features

As is usual with Carlton`s Silver Collection series, the only extra is the film`s trailer. As trailers go, this is adequate but I advise you not to watch it before you watch the film.

Conclusion

Glengarry Glen Ross was written by David Mamet based on his play of the same name. Mamet once worked briefly in a similarly pressured sales environment and his script brings a sense of reality to the situation.

Aside from the script, the main strength of the film lies in the performances of the leads. All are in fine form, knowing that dialogue this good rarely presents itself and delivering it with verve and passion. All the performers get their chance to shine (Harris and Arkin plotting a crime, but neither ever quite saying what they mean) but the main focus is on Lemmon as the has-been and Pacino as the slick, confident master salesman.

Lemmon has never been better in a serious role and he brings pathos to a role than in other hands could become a caricature. Pacino is superb as a man who is on top of his game but knows how precarious his situation is - his luck could change, someone could come along who is younger/better/harder. This manifests itself as a bravura torrent of abuse directed at Spacey who has screwed up his chance to make a critical sale. You could, of course, argue whether such vicious abuse of a colleague is ever justified but it is righteous and the audience cheers him on wishing they had the nerve to dress their boss down in a similar just way.

In his best role ever, Alec Baldwin shines as the arrogant, cruel company representative who uses abuse as motivation.

In one sense, very little actually happens in the film. What is important is the relationships between the protagonists and how those relationships play out. It is a great film and impossible to fault.

What is easier to fault is the DVD package. I acknowledge that Carlton`s Silver Collection brought respectable budget DVDs to the British market but their product is too lacklustre for my liking. They have some excellent films - this, "The Last Seduction", "Educating Rita", "Defence of the Realm", etc - but they are all given a very perfunctory treatment. The film appears to be just thrown onto the disk with no care or attention. There are no extras, which may be excused by the budget price, but I would prefer to pay a little more for a commentary or documentary on these films. The silver framed packaging, to my mind, looks cheap and dated and makes a quintessentially modern product look like something from the 70s. Also, as far Glengarry is concerned, the cover image is baffling. The film poster was a beautifully clean and evocative image of a be-suited man walking a tightrope. Instead of using this, they used blurry images of Pacino and Lemmon superimposed against the New York skyline (even though the film is obviously not set in New York), adding to the cheap garish look of the product. I applaud Carlton for bringing this (and other) films to DVD but wish the end product could be better.