Third Prize Is You're Fired!

“We’re adding a little something to this month’s sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives…third prize is you’re fired!”

     Aw, the life of a salesman. These are the famous first words uttered by Alec Baldwin’s nasty character in the movie, Glengarry Glen Ross.  One of the great tough guy parts in cinema history. Baldwin’s character is either the world’s best or possibly the world’s worst motivational speaker of all time. His name is Blake, and he’s been called in from “downtown” to motivate (or intimidate) the real estate salesmen at Premiere Properties. Sales figures are down and it’s up to Blake to convey the salesman’s mantra to the sales force… Always be closing. You see, only closers get coffee in real estate, and Blake should know, he drove an $80,000 BMW to get there and the rest of the salesmen drove a Hyundai.

     David Mamet’s screenplay is brilliantly razor-sharp in this scorching tale of salesmen and the pressures that they’re under to close their sales prospects. He wrote the adaptation from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name. The dialogue and the characters ring true. There’s not a moment of dishonesty in the entire movie. Rumor has it that Mamet wrote the play while working briefly in a real estate sales office as a younger man. The scathing language, especially the abundant use of profanity, is lifted directly from real life situations.

     The cast is magnificent, possibly the best group of screen actors assembled…EVER! All are pitch perfect. Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris and Alan Arkin make up the desperate sales team, hoping to turn things around as they wait for the premium Glengarry sales leads. Despite that, Kevin Spacey’s trusted office manager is instructed to hold the leads until these “losers” prove themselves as closers.

     It’s pretty much agreed upon that the real standout performance in the movie is Baldwin’s in-your-face sales motivation speech. Almost eight minutes long, the whole scene is so over-flowing with Movie Men tough guy lines it’s hard to choose the best one. “Put that coffee down, coffee’s for closers.”… “You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?”…”The fucking leads are weak? You’re weak!”… “They’re sitting out there waiting to give you their money. Are you going to take it? Are you man enough to take it”…“It takes brass balls to sell real estate.”

     Those are just a few of the choice lines, they’re all so beautifully coarse. In real life, the speech has been so influential that it’s been co-opted by hoards of salesmen, stock traders and telemarketers across the country to encourage their own sales teams. I suppose imitation is a form of flattery. It would be interesting to see if this kind of intimidation actually increases sales figures over time. It seems outlandish, but as Blake says in the movie, “Only one thing counts in this world: get them to sign on the line which is dotted.”

     Simply put.

Bad Hangover

Why do some people smoke unfiltered cigarettes or drink high-proof alcohol? Is there an explanation why Harley Davidson is so popular as a brand identity? There seems to be something appealing about the dark rebellious side of life. Maybe it’s the affiliation with danger. Whatever it is, it sells. People (especially men) seem to be attracted to the seedy underbelly of things.

    The movie The Hangover embraces this notion with both arms and does it without a single apology. At first glance, the movie’s premise is fairly formulaic – Four guys go to Vegas for a bachelor party and wake up the morning after with the groom missing. If you think about it, it sounds like a pitch for a 1980’s John Hughes movie starring Matthew Broderick or Andrew McCarthy. It would be described as a movie delightfully ironic and flippant in tone. Instead, The Hangover goes tonally to the dark side, but does it with great humor. In fact, the dark reality of the movie is what people love about it. Every laugh is followed by a gasp, and that’s intended. Todd Phillips, the director of The Hangover, has a knack for creating male characters that are comfortable with their bad behavior. He also directed the beer bong mastery of Will Ferrell’s Frank-the-Tank character in Old School. Like many of his movies, Phillips' The Hangover is really about men reconciling their bad decisions, and what better location to explore this subversive nature than Las Vegas? When the men in the movie arrive in the city at night, it appears to be so glamorous, but the next morning it's a different city. They soon discover that during the daytime Vegas is like waking up to a stripper without her makeup. It’s not pretty!

     Of course, men behaving badly on screen is nothing new, but The Hangover men are truly believable in their bad behavior. That’s the difference. Their behavior comes out of character and is played truthfully. The characters of Phil, Stu and Alan interact with each other honestly, as real men do, and in an admittedly obscene way. And isn’t that refreshing? Haven't we seen enough of those modern male-centric comedies with their plethora of overly-sentimental, politically-correct male characters? Guys don't act that way. It’s a Three Men A Baby pukefest of unrecognizable men!

     The Hangover is at least reality based, and I say that the dark side may be the best side when it comes to laughs. What we have in The Hangover are deeply flawed men who make really bad decisions. That’s my kind of movie because really…when you think about it, who wants to see a comedy about righteous men who always make really good decisions? There's no fun in that.