- PUT THAT COFFEE DOWN. Coffee is for closers only.
- That is just one example of what passes for motivational speech in the real estate business. Or, to be more precise, the seedy side of the real estate business as portrayed in the excellent Glengarry Glen Ross. According to the brash, unnamed company man (Alec Baldwin), the ABCs of closing a real estate deal are simple: "A--Always, B--Be, C--Closing. Always Be Closing." But wait, there are incentives, too. "First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado... Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired." Do and say whatever you can to get people to buy land they don't really want, or risk losing your soul-crushing job. Those are the terms. Go close some deals.
- But how to find suckers who will buy the land? One word: Leads. The company, Mitch & Murray, provides you with names, don't ask where they come from. If you're a top seller like Ricky Roma (Al Pacino), you might get a crack at the solid gold "Glengarry leads." If you're a washed-up failure like Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon), you're more likely to get leads on deadbeats, nutjobs, or the dreaded "Patels." You go out on rainy nights to place calls from lonely phonebooths to people who won't want what you're trying to push, assuming they're even home. As you might imagine, office morale is a problem.
- Office hothead Dave Moss (Ed Harris) gets frustrated enough with this line of work that he tries to coerce office doormat George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) into an act of corporate theft. In a hilarious exchange, the two get so caught up in whether or not they're "actually talking about" robbery that they never really get around to planning one. And yet, office manager (and probable nepotism beneficiary) Williamson (Kevin Spacey) arrives at work the next morning only to discover that the Glengarry leads have been stolen. The police start with Moss who, by his own admission, "probably did it" but soon move on to George and Shelley. Surely it wasn't Roma, who spent all night skillfully (and perhaps even literally?) massaging his insecure client, James Lingk (Jonathan Pryce). What hope is there to get the truth from guys who make a living out of lying?
- Despite Roma's final complaint that theirs isn't "a world of men," Glengarry Glen Ross is precisely that. I was shocked to see a woman's name in the credits (upon review, she was checking coats), because the film is basically a two-hour examination of the worst ways testosterone can express itself in an office setting. Shouting is the only way to get heard, profanity is the lingua franca, and a salesman's manliness is measured by how many deals he can close. Even when Shelley, the film's most interesting character, tries to project the confidence of an old pro, his nervous laughter and stammering mannerisms betray the fact that he no longer measures up. He'll never again have the brass balls of the company man or the smooth technique of Ricky Roma. Maybe he was once "The Machine" but his job has reduced him to little more than a bunch of broken down spare parts.
- This was based on a play by David Mamet, apparently based on some of his experiences working in a sales office.
- The donut shop looks like the diner in Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.
- Technically, Baldwin's character is named Blake in the credits, but I prefer the name he gives to Moss.
