Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

ericventura Every aspect of this film should have received an award nomination. Every aspect of this film is done to a point. It's a play on the big screen, but it's an intense and introspective search of human desperation in an isolated incident, filmed so perfectly and naturally that the viewer can't doubt its realism. In the style of Arthur Miller, we have a story that may seem to desire the reform of the real estate industry, but that's absurd. It is an examination of the human reaction to having their back to the wall. Calm; negotiations; bribery; dirty deals; thievery; crime; and desperation.We have a film of immensely emotional and carefully constructed dialogue. Mamet builds the characters and feelings of the real estate agents through each line of dialogue. The screenplay dictates more a character study than a plot. The slow reveal of events only works to further characterize and emphasize personality.With such great characters in the film, they need great performances to make them come alive. Jack Lemmon leads the pack by far. Cheated out of a nomination, it feels like Lemmon is playing himself – a washed up character who once was the best. You can see the pain, the desperation, and the raw emotion on his face, but you can hear it in each line delivered. Lemmon leads the film and drives the character study, and he is the main subject. Al Pacino delivers a finely tuned and seasoned role that supports Lemmon' character through his downfall. Alec Baldwin punches out a brief performance with an intensity that the catalyst for the entire film needs. Alan Arkin is the pathetic one that was always pathetic. Arkin reads between the lines and conveys a convincing character. Ed Harris plays the character of rage and revenge, the one who has always been cheated, maybe an alcoholic – and Harris gets it right. Kevin Spacey, unfortunately, is dull and blah. His character is supposed to be a stone statue, but even a statue can have a fire in his eye.James Foley directs a monster of a cast through a delicate screenplay, turning in a beautiful film. The piece takes place in a naturally built production design, complete with a Chinese restaurant and a real estate office. But everything is buried too deep under the natural realism of the film. The emotions are perfect, but somewhat stale. It feels like a sweet glazed jelly donut without the jelly. There's a beautiful film that has substance, but no essence. Here, we have the 'Death of a Real Estate Agent', but just one notch below "Death of a Salesman."

Eric Stevenson As someone who's seen tons of movie clips and references, I had no idea that this was the movie that I kept hearing about. I remember watching the scene with Alec Baldwin before but apparently forgot what movie it came from. I was so pleasantly surprised to see it here again! I remember an Al Pacino soundboard with him saying he was Richard Roma and once again, I had no clue this was the movie where it came from. It was so cool to see these little video and audio clips I had seen and heard before come to life here! Anyway, the movie's only fault is probably how Alec Baldwin should have appeared more.I thought he was going to be the new boss in this company, but he was just there as a motivational speaker. Al Pacino of course makes this movie. I was really impressed at how they took such an adult concept and put it in a movie that was only 100 minutes long. Normally, you'd think a film that iconic with such big name actors would be long and epic. I'm not complaining at all. This movie was still great and I loved how it seemed to be really saying something about business. I'm not into real estate or big stuff like that, but I did think it's something most workers can identify with. It's worth its reputation, even if I couldn't identify it at first. ***1/2

Bloodshed Throne Productions This film is undoubtedly one of my favourites of all time and that's because of it's brilliant portrayal of salesmen, it's stellar, sorry interstellar cast and its driving plot.One thing I really liked about this film (and it's Pulitzer prize winning source) is its 100 minute run-time. In that short 100 minutes, the film expressed to me more about the sales business did than Wall Street did in 126 minutes.Unfamiliarity - In this film, we're given an unfamiliar situation. There's no other film like this, so this is the first time we're actually being placed in this sort of situation. That's what gets us intrigued.Familiarity - Majority of the film takes place in one room. That gives us familiarity in terms of setting. We feel like home in that room, in a sense that we know how the characters move inside. The same is with 12 Angry Men and Reservoir Dogs. If unfamiliarity got us started, familiarity keeps us going.Next, the performances. Can we change that Best Actor to Denzel Washington for Malcolm X and that Best Supporting Actor to Al Pacino for Glengarry Glen Ross? Al Pacino is fantastic in this film. Kevin Spacey's performance makes you sympathise with him and hate him at the same time. Jack Lemmon makes you love him. Alan Arkin and Ed Harris are equally great. Alec Baldwin really has "brass balls".On a last note, I cannot talk about this film without commenting on it's fantastic editing. The editing is just marvellous. We cut back and forth and back and forth really fast when the conversation keeps rambling. We feel the conversation's tension and its rhythm when the actors and editors do what they do best.

Patrick Nackaert One can't escape the feeling that it's a play. Very little is invested in the setting - most of the film is in an office. But it stands in contrast with how much is invested in the acting.All the main actors are really salesmen - with their typical salesmen problems. And their annoying habits of bothering their victims as much as possible. As the story unfolds, characters evolve properly. Some don't.The dialogues are intense, as it is written for plays. The mind tricks the salesmen are pulling are just amazing and may be compared to scenes of other great movies like The Wolf of Wall Street.The little substance of the plot - the sales team of a real estate office is put under pressure, as someone robbed it - is not annoying by the drama added. You can just feel Jack Lemon's tiredness of years and years of finding victims.One thing was annoying: once you start to notice it's based on a play, you start to notice the limitations. Dialogues can be endless. There could have been more shots without dialogues. One knows that when one actor leaves the room, another is going to come in.But it's still a very entertaining film for an interesting evening.