Review for Glengarry Glen Ross

Note:This classic film is available for the first time on Blu-ray and exclusive DVD and Blu-ray combo steel combo, This review is only looking at the DVD.

When I was a Drama student I loved David Mamet. It was like the perfect antidote to all the Shakespeare and Chekhov that you had to read. His work felt real and fresh and used words and sentences that you could imagine you would hear anywhere.

Glengarry Glen Ross was based on his award-winning play and stars a cast that most people could only dream of. The main cast itself is like a Who's Who of the Best of Acting: Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Arkin. The number of major awards that these have all won numbers into the double and even triple figures.

The film tells the story of a sales office where there are only two types of people: Sellers and Losers. Everyone is out for themselves looking to get the best leads and the best clients to sell to. Having worked in sales myself I know how awful it can be walking along one street and not getting one bite and then your 'colleague' walks down the other side of the street hitting targets left, right and centre. This is the essence of the film.

Blake (Baldwin) enters the lives of the sales room and during a torrent of abuse issues them all with a challenge that the top two sellers will gain access to the best leads... the rest will be fired. When the office is robbed and the leads stolen, everyone is a suspect and everyone must prove that they are innocent... alongside trying to keep going to get those sales. Because as the film states, they must Always Be Closing.

It is this cutthroat aspect to the film that gives it its wonderful edge and when you see the struggles that the characters have best externally and internally you really do feel for every character. The film itself is very dialogue heavy, as is Mamet's style, and so you may find yourself needing to pause the film just to process what has just taken place, but the very film-noir feel that director James Foley creates gives it a wonderful sleakness that could almost come from that 40s/50s era of filmmaking.

It is universally acknowledged that this film is stolen by the performances of Jack Lemmon as Shelley 'The Machine' Levine, an aging seller who was once the best in the business, but now just down on his luck and Al Pacino as Ricky Roma a top 'closer' who is the best in the office. But the fact is the rest of the cast prove why they went on to bigger and better things. Much like the cast of The Godfather it is amazing to look at someone like Kevin Spacey and think that he was still three years away from his breakthrough in The Usual Suspects.

The extra features in the film are fantastic and well deerving to such a great film. I did wonder what a studio would be able to put in a film like this, but they managed to cram in so much stuff that even if you are simply fans of the actors or acting in general, this film is perfect. It boasts a feature commentary by James Foley who I do wish was accompanied by someone, Mamet perhaps, but is still full of fascinating tales about the film's creation.

Also there are four extra commentaries for specific scenes by Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Cinematographer Juan Ruiz and Jane Musky. These are great, but I do wish they had got some more people and just created a second 'assembled commentary' much like the one for Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits. These are all again filled with great tales about that person's involvement with the film.

As noted, there is no commentary from David Mamet and this is a shame as it would be interesting to hear what he thought about how the film came out and how he created the story and characters.

There is an odd documentary of sorts looking at sales from the point of view of a number of sources. It is interesting, but I would have preferred an actual documentary with maybe some of the other people involved commenting. A tribute to Jack Lemmon is great though I wish we could have seen some of his best moments from over the years, but it was nice to see his moments on the Inside The Actor's Studio and also his interview on the Charlie Rose Show was interesting too.

Kevin Spacey's performance of a scene with a fan from Inside The Actor's Studio is wonderful too. There is an odd short documentary called J Roy: New and Used Furniture that I can't quite figure out what it has to do with the film or anyone involved and wasn't that entertaining either. It is rounded off with its Trailer.

Glengarry Glen Ross is a masterclass in acting, everyone is at the peak of their skills and it is hard to imagine anyone else playing these roles. If you are a fan of the film you will be sold on a treat of extras accompanying the film, and even if you are only a fan of great acting you will be sold on that too. That's how I'm closing this deal.