GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS locks down a deal as a Master Class in acting from a magnificent seven pros and holds an open house with hors d’oeuvres for fanciers of David Mamet’s bitterness-basted dialogue. As for selling the genuine article about the dark arts of deals it’s more of a textbook case (angry playwright’s version) of mistruth-in-advertising. A stunner of a snow job, although Mamet wouldn’t use the word ‘snow’. *

“We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”

Four salesmen (Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin) in one office of a close-or-perish real estate outfit are on notice and/or the ropes after a blistering ‘pep talk’ from the company’s hottest shot (Alec Baldwin). Between blaming their under-the-gun office manager (Kevin Spacey) they scheme possible victory laps or escape routes. One of their bamboozled marks (Jonathan Pryce) shows up just as the boiling point reaches volcanic.

Mamet wrote the profanity-shotgunned screenplay, adapting it from his Pulitzer-winning play. James Foley directed. Critics raved. Budding hustlers looked at Baldwin’s bastard and took his secure awfulness as a call to glory, much like many a would-be-shark misread the ‘Gecko’/greed manifesto of Wall Street. People who knee-jerk hate salesmen (we’ve all been there) basked in the stagey carnage as if it was the gospel about the profession and its unprofessional professionals. Whatever. If you can’t fight City Hall, you’re also doomed to defeat trying to un-convince people of something they want (or need) to believe is truth. *

The overkill of the writing style (give the f-word a f-ing breather for f’s sake) does, however, provide its stellar brace of actors with explosive hollow-point ammo and on that level the movie is a take-no-prisoners red meat feast for the cast. For my chump change, the most memorable pieces of performance craft in this one are not in how the lines are delivered but in the subtle looks and gestures that tell more about the characters than their verbal displays of rage, contempt and panic (goodness does not abide in Manetland). Baldwin’s brief, brutal tirade is the signature speech and he’s magnetic at being malevolent, but we’ll go with Pacino and Harris carving the choicest cuts. Pacino was Oscar-nominated for Best Supporting Actor (was Baldwin pissed? whaddaya think?) in the same year he won Best Actor for Scent Of A Woman. That’s a showier role, but he’s better here.

Despite critical praise and word-of-mouth, the bile bath washed out at the box office; the $10,700,000 gross, 95th for ’92, was a loser against the $12,500,000 investment. Did someone at New Line Cinema get fired? You think real estate is dog-eat-dog?

With Bruce Altman and Jude Ciccolella. 100 minutes.

* Your sales-survived scribe has plenty of personal experience in the field—real estate, phone sales agony, door-to-door trench combat, retail boredom, yes, even cars (briefly and a major barf) and can attest to the pressure cooker aspect (in some scenarios—not all by a mile) but Mamet’s beneath-the-smiles sneer takes things to such hateful extremes that make it look worse than boot camp in the Foreign Legion.