Glengarry Glen Ross Response
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, written in 1984 is his Pulitzer prize and Tony award-winning play written in 1984, and as rightly said by a critic but would be definitely more appropriately titled as “Death of a F***** Salesman” because of the use of profanity. I saw the movie version, which was directed by James Foley and starred a power-house cast that featured, Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed harris, Alan Aarkin, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin and Jonathan Pryce. Based around the lives of a bunch of New York City salesmen, who work for a firm called Mitch & Murray, soon find their lives turned upside down, when their corporate office decides to send a fellow-salesman, Blake (Alec Baldwin), to talk to all of them regarding their sales specifically and the number of “closes” made by them ( however, I failed to see how what he said was “motivational”) – ultimately, putting a condition that would reward the highest number of closes (or the best salesman) with a new Cadillac and that the bottom two salesmen would be fired. Therefore, this sets some turmoil amongst the many, different salesmen, who choose to handle this situation depending on the threat they perceive this to be. Al Pacino as Ricky Roma, already the top salesman, doesn’t flinch a nerve because he is already on top of the sales board. On the other hand, Jack Lemmon as Shelly, having a sick daughter, and being an almost “dead-beat” after having worked many years for Mitch & Murray finds it essential for himself to find or resort to the leads for him to keep his job. With two of them so hell-bent on getting these precious “leads” (Jack Lemmon as Shelly and Ed Harris as Moss), with the others setting such a grim undertone, it is difficult to determine, who amongst them would have broken into the office to steal the leads, initially. This is left untouched by the author and director, when it is only revealed in the end – something, which is so unexpected and especially, the way in which it was revealed. But, obviously, having seen many of them plot or suggest this idea makes the audience completely aware of the fact that it would have to be someone from within the office to have stolen the leads from the office. Glengarry Glen Ross is characterised by a very fluid plot, which changes rapidly throughout the narrative, but never accelerates to become unrecognisable, with some great transitions. It all very instrumented. The character portrayals by each of the cast members is extremely well-done, Al Pacino as Ricky Roma, being my favourite! Although, If I’m honest, it was hard for me to sit till the end of the movie because of the pace it chose to take to further it, with so many stops in the middle, having a dialogue-intensive script and plethora of scenes (and f****). But the end doesn’t fail to surprise anyone, simply because of the way things turn out to be: so extreme. Kevin Spacey’s (as Williamson, the manager) voice has been stuck in my head from the end of the movie, when he is about to turn in Shelley after he realised that he was the one responsible for the burglary in the office: “Because I don’t like you” – all in all, Glengarry Glen Ross is a very iconic play written for its time simply because of its tone, premise and plot structure, but it specially struck a chord with me because of the wonderful performances given by the very memorable cast.