Glengarry Glenn Ross

Glengarry Glenn Ross

Glengarry Glenn Ross is a film that received a great deal of praise from movie critics when it was released by New Line Cinema in 1992. Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the movie three and a half stars out of four, and was quoted as saying that Glengarry Glenn Ross was the "Death of a Salesman" of modern times (Ebert). While this comparison might not be made by all viewers of this movie, Glengarry Glenn Ross is a great viewpoint into the sales offices of today, and gives an insight into the pressures that salespeople face today. The movie is loaded with supervisory styles and situations, as well as showing how unforgiving the sales world really can be.

Glengarry Glen Ross was written by playwright David Mamet in 1984. The play was so well received that it received a Pulitzer Prize for Drama that same year (Emanuel Levy). Mamet adapted his play into a screenplay for the 1992 movie release. Mamet is also credited with writing the screenplays for such notable movies as "Hoffa", "The Untouchables", "About Last Night", and most recently "Hannibal."(IMDB) Mamet, however, did not direct "Glengarry Glenn Ross" even though he had previous directing experience on a movie named "House of Games" (Levy). "Glengarry Glen Ross" was instead directed by James Foley, a director responsible for directing such films as "Who's That Girl" and "The Chamber"(IMDB).

There have been several movies made over the past few fifteen years such as "Ocean's Eleven" and "A Few Good Men" that present such an impressive ensemble of actors that the lead actor and the role actors are hard to define due to the heavyweight names associated with these movies. "Glengarry Glenn Ross" can be associated with these movies due to the collection of well-known actors starring in this movie. Beginning with such A-listers as Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, and Alec Baldwin, the movie would stand alone with these names, even if the remaining cast were unfamiliar. However, other notables such as Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, and Alan Arkin do a terrific job of rounding out the all-star cast. These actors bring such prestige and notoriety to the film that it makes it hard for this not to be a success. Obviously, this movie must be considered a success, because it is still being discussed today.

The movie starts out in a downtown real estate sales office where Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, and Alan Arkin are real estate salesman working for Premiere Properties. Their jobs are based upon making calls on sales leads which consist of cards with the names of potential customers. These cards are given to them by their sales manager, played by Kevin Spacey. Alec Baldwin, who only appears in one scene in the movie, is sent to the sales office from the management team