(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)
It doesn't take a movie connoisseur to see that this is a stage play filmed.
So what? The play is a work of genius--it won a Pulitzer Prize--and the cast is about as good as you can get. Jack Lemmon gives a performance that will tear your heart out...well, if you're like any of the characters in the play, you have no heart! And Al Pacino gets to put the pedal to the metal and fire on all cylinders. He is great when he's screaming, and he's even better when he's handing out buddy-buddy BS philosophy. Kevin Spacey as John Williamson, the boss of the boiler room crew, has the skin of a rhino and the heart of a baboon. Incidentally, the language is foul, fouler and foulest, and indeed, poor David Mamet, who wrote the play and adapted it for the screen, ran out of expletives. I mean how many ways can you suggest that someone perform impossible acts upon themselves? Yet, considering the moral fiber of the characters, the language seemed not inappropriate.
Indeed, Mamet is a master of dialogue and some of the set pieces are just marvels. The exchange between Dave Moss (Ed Harris) and George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) as Moss leads up to his plan to steal the precious 'leads' is like a ping pong match done as a pas de deux. And the harangue by Alec Baldwin as the brass...endowed motivational speaker was a crack up.
This is an extraordinarily intense film, so intense if you watch carefully you can see first Jack Lemmon and then Al Pacino so fired up and wildly expressive that spit comes out of their mouths along with the words. (I've done that.) In fact, all the actors feed off of one another. Being on the set must have been just an amazing experience with everyone trying to outdo everyone else. The timing alone is worth the ticket.
Note that no women grace the screen. I mean zero. This is a war flick with con artists in the trenches. Note also how carefully plotted the story is. Mamet thought it out and worked and reworked it so that everything fits. For example when 'The Machine' Levene makes his little slip revealing that he knew that the Roma contract had not been sent, we can immediately fill in the details realizing that Dave Moss had gotten to him with his cowardly scheme. And when Levene learns that his miraculous $82,000 sale is to crazies who have no money and just like to talk to salesmen, we see how perfectly ironic that is, and how tragic, like the life of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. We can also see, if we really want to look beyond the movie, that Jack Lemmon's interpretation of Levene owes something to Willy Loman as does Mamet's creation. I have seen Jack Lemmon in many things, beginning with Mr. Roberts (1955) through Some Like It Hot (1959) to Grumpy Old Men (1993) and he has been wonderful, one of the great stars of the silver screen, but I don't think I've ever seen him more convincing than here. All the other actors in this film also have done larger pieces and had more demanding roles, but I'll bet they seldom had more fun.
You don't want to miss this movie. It is one of a kind. The cynicism is palpable and the desperation so humanly demeaning that it's almost funny.
It doesn't take a movie connoisseur to see that this is a stage play filmed.
So what? The play is a work of genius--it won a Pulitzer Prize--and the cast is about as good as you can get. Jack Lemmon gives a performance that will tear your heart out...well, if you're like any of the characters in the play, you have no heart! And Al Pacino gets to put the pedal to the metal and fire on all cylinders. He is great when he's screaming, and he's even better when he's handing out buddy-buddy BS philosophy. Kevin Spacey as John Williamson, the boss of the boiler room crew, has the skin of a rhino and the heart of a baboon. Incidentally, the language is foul, fouler and foulest, and indeed, poor David Mamet, who wrote the play and adapted it for the screen, ran out of expletives. I mean how many ways can you suggest that someone perform impossible acts upon themselves? Yet, considering the moral fiber of the characters, the language seemed not inappropriate.
Indeed, Mamet is a master of dialogue and some of the set pieces are just marvels. The exchange between Dave Moss (Ed Harris) and George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) as Moss leads up to his plan to steal the precious 'leads' is like a ping pong match done as a pas de deux. And the harangue by Alec Baldwin as the brass...endowed motivational speaker was a crack up.
This is an extraordinarily intense film, so intense if you watch carefully you can see first Jack Lemmon and then Al Pacino so fired up and wildly expressive that spit comes out of their mouths along with the words. (I've done that.) In fact, all the actors feed off of one another. Being on the set must have been just an amazing experience with everyone trying to outdo everyone else. The timing alone is worth the ticket.
Note that no women grace the screen. I mean zero. This is a war flick with con artists in the trenches. Note also how carefully plotted the story is. Mamet thought it out and worked and reworked it so that everything fits. For example when 'The Machine' Levene makes his little slip revealing that he knew that the Roma contract had not been sent, we can immediately fill in the details realizing that Dave Moss had gotten to him with his cowardly scheme. And when Levene learns that his miraculous $82,000 sale is to crazies who have no money and just like to talk to salesmen, we see how perfectly ironic that is, and how tragic, like the life of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. We can also see, if we really want to look beyond the movie, that Jack Lemmon's interpretation of Levene owes something to Willy Loman as does Mamet's creation. I have seen Jack Lemmon in many things, beginning with Mr. Roberts (1955) through Some Like It Hot (1959) to Grumpy Old Men (1993) and he has been wonderful, one of the great stars of the silver screen, but I don't think I've ever seen him more convincing than here. All the other actors in this film also have done larger pieces and had more demanding roles, but I'll bet they seldom had more fun.
You don't want to miss this movie. It is one of a kind. The cynicism is palpable and the desperation so humanly demeaning that it's almost funny.