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 Director
: James Foley
Starring
: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce, Alan
Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin.
Picture
4:3 Full-Screen, DD 2.0, Single-Side,Single-Layer, Keep
Case
Running
Time : 100 mins
The
story:
A
Story For Everyone Who Works For A Living.
Times
are tough in a Chicago Real Estate office; the salesmen
are given a strong incentive to succeed in a sales contest.
The prizes? First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize
is a set of steak knives, third prize is the sack! There
is no room for losers in this dramatically competitive world;
only "closers" will get the good sales leads.
There is a lot of pressure to succeed, so a robbery is committed
which has unforeseen consequences for all the characters.
The
summary:
David
Mamet has proved a few times that he is one of the masters
of dialogue. Nearly every scene in this film is a celebration
of how dialogue should be written and spoken. The film is
based on the same-name play written by Mamet and, not surprisingly,
this film is adapted by him and directed brilliantly by
James Foley. It is even filmed in an atmosphere that reeks
of the same claustrophobia as the stage, but that does little
to affect your enjoyment.
The
story mostly takes place in a real-estate office (Estate
Agents to you and me!) located somewhere downtown, close
to where the trains pass by. But the plot is not nearly
as important as the wonderful scenes and interaction between
the impressive cast. You see, the movie basically has little
of a plot and takes place over 24 hours. Its really just
the story of a small sales office and the working lives
of its employees.
The
characters are all salesmen. Every moment in their lives
seems to revolve around making that all important sale.
They constantly lie and cheat to get the sale so that they
won't be dumped on the street by their bosses, who are tiring
of their employees slow accumulation of sales. Since nearly
every one of the characters is currently in a slump, they
become desperate and stressed with their bad leads and negative
commission. This desperation leads to more than one of the
employees planning a burglary of the office to steal the
new leads given to the office manager by a head office executive
earlier that day. That same executive, brilliantly played
by Alec Baldwin gives one of the best on screen speeches
you are likely to hear and despite only being a bit player
in the movie it is one of the roles that everyone talks
about when you mention Alec Baldwin.
For
me this is one of the best all star movies there is and
is very much in the same vain as Reservoir dogs for its
dialogue and sparse locations. It is sad that despite its
quality this is a very overlooked movie.
The
DVD is a disappointing bargain release on Carlton TVs own
label and as such has no extra's and is a full screen, Dolby
2.0 release. It is testament to the film that despite these
drawbacks it still remains so watchable.
....And
remember coffee is for closers!
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