Writer David Mamet’s dialogue has a distinctive cadence to
it that makes it instantly recognizable. In Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet’s foul
mouthed, stylized dialogue is the showcase of the film. Wonderfully recited by
Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, and, in a scene
stealing cameo, Alec Baldwin, the dialogue is fueled by an internal logic that
creates a world onto itself. Glengarry Glen Ross is Death of a Salesman for a
modern age. The film is about salesmen of worthless real estate property in a
company that is long past being on its last leg. These men are informed that if
they do not improve their sales they will be fired by the end of the month.
They scramble to make sales to people desperate, foolish and dumb enough to buy
into what borders on a scam. These salesmen should be slimy; they are often
duping people, and they scheme and lie in order to get the sale done. Yet we
never feel anything but sympathetic for these sad, sometimes awful, characters
(and there is never a time where they don’t feel like larger than life
presences that make them read more like characters than humans). Like Willy
Loman, they’re oddly noble even when they’re pathetic. How much of this is due
to Mamet’s dialogue? Mamet gives such interesting things for these people to
say that we can’t help but listen, even when they’re selling bullshit even they
wouldn’t buy.
Grade: A-
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