Glenngarry Glenn Ross review_Paul Ahn
Gah sales, I can’t say I’ve worked professionally as a salesman but I’ve worked at Emory telefund center (That’s where we call alumni and ask for donations) and the stress of calling and asking for a buy is just damn stressful. I always felt that in the two notoriously hard jobs, sales and customer service, the first one was the harder one. The reasoning behind it is that in customer service at least the customer comes to bother you but in sales you gotta go and bother them. As a person who does not intruding on others bubble sales job was just a pain in the bottom. When I realized what was going on in “Glengarry Glen Ross” I could relate to the stress the characters felt. Just as the movie contains a lot of profanity I understood why. The acronyms, when Blake flips the board and the acronyms come up I instantly felt stress. The emory telefund call center also had a similar acronym and to be honest it was very much all a load of manure. Some people were good at closing, and some people weren’t and no matter the acronym, that doesn’t change easily. It is not exactly a calculated and developed skill. The dialogue between Dave and George really felt down to earth for all regular office/corporate worker with their daily grind. It really connected with the last weeks “Waiting for Godot”. The dialogues were so real I really felt stress. When Shelley speaks to John the manager in order to get the better Glenngarry leads you can feel the desperation. His job is on the line, his daughter is sick, and the leads are trash. But what Kevin Spacey said also makes sense, he has his own family as well. Something goes wrong, his family is in trouble as well. But his move with the cash for the new better lead shows his not so straight personality.
Working under fear and duress I feel is not a good motivator. Now Ricky, as seen from his monologue which inspired the regular man to buy the land, has talent. When the set up robbery takes place Ricky shows as how it is. The old leads are useless and since Ricky has accomplished a lot, he had the right to complain. Shelly comes in happy since he closed a big sale, and tells his war stories. Ricky comments about how Moss is just an asshole who galores about his own sale but cannot be happy about his friend’s sale. All in all, their whole world seems like a mess. Their up and down depends on the sale so it is erratic and half of their sales are based on border line deceit. It is just chaotic. When Ricky’s client comes to get his money back the stress level goes up. From here on I can just tell that their business really borders on deceit (persuasion) and bafflement. Everyone is uptight because everyone is on the line. It even turns out Shelly’s sale is a bogus one and Ricky’s encouragement does not help.
It can be a messy world out there and the movie portrays it well.