gml17

This movie makes one of NYC's best dive bar look comicly bad. That the main character is trying to make it in the big city from "Perth Amboy,NJ" is quite funny. That's like twenty minutes away from NYC- she isn't coming from the Cornfields of Iowa. The acting is pretty bad overall, the plot is unintelligible, and I may just stop going there.

After hearing all the hype and even seeing a review in Entertainment Weekly giving it an "A" I figured that I must see this film. Visually, this is quite well shot, setting the groundworks for other brilliantly shot Coen Bros. films. The plot is decent to above average, but there was an actual lack of interesting dialougue that grounded this film to a halt in places. Some of the characters are just not bright people, but I debate whether that was done purposefully to showcase the Sardonic wit that the Coen's have. This wasn't a masterpiece but a solid debut from arguably the best duo of filmakers to come around in the past 20 years.

No film that I have ever seen expresses the path that the working man follows better than this one. Lemmon and Arkin are perfect as the salesman who's luck has turned towards the negative. You can literally see their will to live being sucked out of them with every blown sale and missed opportunity. Ed Harris is great as the angry salesman who is willing to do what it takes to save his own future. Kevin Spacey plays the tight -collared boss to a T, pushing people and not giving them the breaks they need. The two most quoted characters of any movie I know are those played by Pacino and Baldwin. Pacino always excels in parts where his anger and ability to create believable outbursts are showcased, as they are in this part. All that I can say about Baldwin is that this is definitely his best performance and the writing for his character is unbelievable. I can watch his 10 minute scene over and over again. This movie rules in every way possible. 10 out of 10. (I don't give that rating easily)