150 Word Review: 'Glengarry Glen Ross' (1992)

Second prize is a set of steak knives.

Photo: New Line Cinema

There are a few flaws in David Mamet's Pulitzer-winning play Glengarry Glen Ross, which he fixes for the movie. James Foley masterfully directs the film adaptation, and Mamet adds a short scene not in his stage version. That scene? ABC—Alec Baldwin, cursing. Baldwin is Blake, an uptown alpha dog sent to kick the asses of all the pathetic real estate peddlers downtown. He unveils a sales contest: the winner gets a car, and losers are shit-canned. And they're all losers, except—maybe—Al Pacino's Ricky Roma, bullshit artist supreme.

Baldwin’s simple monologue turbocharges the stakes, and the play suffers without it. What a cast: the movie is a demolition derby of profane, testosterone-dipped quips between men living lives of loud, in-your-face desperation. Ed Harris is a hammer. Alan Arkin, a nail. As sniveling has-been Shelley 'The Machine' Levene, Jack Lemmon gives a career-best performance as a once-great hustler, part snake, part granddad.

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