Anything less than five stars for this star-studded masterpiece just boggles.

As much as I worship at the Altar of Al, Jack Lemmon stole this movie with his portrayal of "The Machine" Levine, an alternately insufferable arrogant ass and broken man with a sick daughter he can't take care of.

I have no patience for those who clutch their pearls and talk about "the cursing". Yes, this movie was jokingly referred to as "Death of a F---g Salesman" by the cast, but the dialogue is almost musical and poetic as well as jarring. Mamet has a rhythm and cadence all his own, and in the mouths of these class A thespians, it's a symphony of fire and music. (With apologies to Glass Menagerie).

Please see this film. It's one of the best. I wouldn't change a semi-colon.

This is a serious adaptation of the play, using an all-star cast. The acting is top-notch. But I recently learned by watching the Blu-Ray with my wife that this isn't a film for everyone. If you want to see talking animals or beautiful people dressed beautifully in a certain time setting, this is not the film for you. I guess it is slow moving, and my wife complained, "Yap, yap, yap." Well, yeah, it's a film based around dialogue. There isn't much action -- except the emotions of the various characters, and there are certainly no talking animals. For me, it's probably up there with the best 25 movies ever made. I can watch it repeatedly because it is very smart and relatable.

Based upon a play by David Mamet who also did the screenplay Glengarry Glen Ross is about four struggling salesmen Richard (Al Pacino), Shelley (Jack Lemmon), Dave (Ed Harris), and George (Alan Arkin) who are told they’re going to be fired if they don’t turn around their sales numbers. Blake (Alec Baldwin) shows up from their corporate office with the good news while calling them out as failures. The movie is about the heartless face of capitalism.

The tone of the film is set when Blake is introduced. He cusses out the salesman, brags about how much money he has and how many expensive material possessions he owns. He rubs his wealth in their faces not to say that they can be like him but rather the opposite that they will never have what he has. It’s not a motivational speech but rather a death sentence,

The salesmen respond by complaining and whining but then they hit the phones. That shows their techniques which is to lie and cajole people into buying real estate from them. They do spam calls before the term was invented.

The movie explores how the system is failing these salesmen. One offers to bribe his boss to get good leads to increase his sales. Another thinks about stealing them. They come up with these ideas because they know they can’t win. That’s the message of the movie that capitalism is often not full of the wealth and opportunity that it promises.
C

I never really liked the movie itself. I honestly find it long and boring. However, I always appreciate good writing (especially from theatre/literature) and great acting. This movie is the epitome of what acting is. And it can be used as a great tool to understand and learn acting techniques, particularly acting collaboratively. This movie has one of the greatest casts of all time (Lemmon, Harris, Pacino, Spacey, Baldwin). These are some of the greatest actors of the 20th century and it can never be duplicated.

Everyone who is or has been in sales will enjoy this movie. Besides the all-star cast…. Jack Lemmon is amazing in this one…. you will see everything that goes on in the life of salesmen. Real salesmen, not the hacks that wait for people to walk in. Ohhhh the complaining! The excuses!! lol… anyone who has ever sold knows what I’m talking about.

Did I mention Jack Lemmon is amazing? Alan Arkin, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin…. it is absolutely brilliant.

This blu ray is spectacular. Glengarry Glen Ross has never looked this good, it's a lot better than what you'll get via streaming. The picture quality is crisp and beautiful, and the audio quality really brings out the subtle sound mixing you may not appreciate on other releases, as well as brings out James Newton Howard's score immaculately well. I have a pretty large blu ray collection and this is by far one of my best looking ones. Every now and again there's some noticeable grain/scratches on the film, but it never gets to the point where it's too distracting.

Maybe it's this huge inside joke that I was never in on, when every sales manager or salesperson says this film is the classic guide on how to sell, but literally everything in this film is bad advice, with the exception of the scene with the coffee. If you do badly, don't blame the leads- if you want better leads, do good with the bad leads. Okay so 5 minutes of good advice. The remaining 1.5 hours of the film is horrible, disgustingly bad advice for selling, and I say the as the #1 sales person for most of the 6 years I was in the industry. 4 stars because it's a great film if you treat it as dramatic satire.

In my years of watching all genres of movies, none has ever struck me like this one. It's the most intense and thrilling flick that doesn't involve a moment's violence. The cast is perfect: Al Pacino as the confident, slick Ricky Roma; Jack Lemmon as the down-on-his-luck Shelley "The Machine" Levene; Ed Harris as the hot-headed yet shrewd Dave Moss; Alan Arkin as the ever-insecure George Aronow; Kevin Spacey as Mitch & Murray's "Company Man" Jon Williamson; and Alec Baldwin as Mr. Limpkin, the perfect symbol of upper-management arrogance and cruelty. Never has a movie gone so far with basically just a half-dozen people on screen at any one time. (A then unknown Jonathan Pryce has a supporting role as James Link, one of Roma's clients/victims, but he's vastly overshadowed in this movie.)

The storyline is one of an ever-frustrating vicious circle: real estate salesmen in a struggling economy are trying to get on a hot streak again. Middle management of Mitch & Murray is no help, only promising that "new leads" will be introduced. In walks Limpkin, there to supposedly give them a pep talk. Instead it's an insult-fest: Shelley goes over to get a cup of coffee and is immedeately chastised: "Coffee is for closers only!" Limpkin further attacks Levene, snidely remarking, "You call yourself a salesman, you son of a b****?" One after another, these salesmen are ripped apart as being weak and incompetent. The company sales competition is then reviewed....first prize, a Cadillac El Dorado; second prize, a set of steak knives; third prize? You're fired! Then, just as quickly as the new Glengarry leads are introduced, Limpkin reveals that they're not for "losers" like them: "To give them to you would be like throwing them away. They're for closers." Baldwin's performance is brilliant here. His combination of intensity and cool cockiness has the effect of a boxer's punch: brief but stinging. And it helps set the tone for the movie's story of how the other salesmen react to his not-so-pleasant visit.

Meanwhile, the one salesman on a hot streak, Ricky Roma, shows why as he casually talks a random man from the local restaurant (Pryce) about life, loves, and, eventually real estate. His approach to closing is more suddle: get to know the person, buy them plenty to drink, pretend to care and empathize with them, all the while sizing them up for the deal. At the same time, Moss concocts a plan to break into Mitch & Murray's and steal the new leads...with the help of a co-conspirator. Dave needs a second person to do the dirty work, since he's been so vocal in his criticsm of M & M's handling of sales, so he works George over mentally to go along and illegally swipe the leads and sell them to a rival real estate agency. Shelley, after failing to convince Williamson to loan him a couple of new leads, is out trying to close the old-fashioned way: going door-to-door. In one scene, probably the most uncomfortable in the whole film, Levene does his best to smooth-talk a young husband to buy land, using all sorts of jargon to make the deal look and sound sweet, when both he and the young man know that no deal will be made. In a moment, it crystalizes what hard-luck the salesmen (except Roma) are going through.

The next morning, the robbery of the leads has indeed taken place, and personal situations change: the files for Roma's previous closings are also missing, along with every phone in the office. Each salesman is being interrogated by police, to seemingly no avail of finding answers. Shelley then enters, excited over a sale he's finally made. The experience is almost like a conquest: he's more confident,cheerful, and, like Roma, bust Williamson's butt for his lack of sales experience, among other things. From here I won't give much more away: through a series of events, each salesman gains and loses something. All I'll say is that George probably ended up with the steak knives!

I know I went into long detail, but I love this movie!! Writer/Screenplay David Mamet obviously worked in this field at one point; there is much attention to detail, between the sales-improving corporate-speak of "A.B.C." and "A.I.D.A", to the indignant sign above Williamson's office which reads "SALESMEN ARE BORN NOT MADE", I'm willing to bet that this story had to come from some real-life experience. I also thought the movie was actually enhanced by the exclusion of two things: scenes of the robbery itself, and when Shelley "closes" the deal with the Nyhborgs (I probably spelled that wrong, but so what?) This is a movie that is relevant in any era or any business; it shows the downfall of what was once considered an eternally existent profession. Substitute "real estate" with "car" or "insurance" salesmen and it would still have the same effect. Funny, brutal, with a twist of irony at the end, this is a movie I could watch every day and never be sick of.