Glengarry Glen Ross

I know this movie is revered for its acting and the dialogue. I'm not going to tell you this movie shouldn't be appreciated for that. Every actor in this movie is on fire here, perhaps none more so than Jack Lemmon, whose Shelley Lavene is a tragic, desperate man who feels time and life closing around him in the worst way possible. Alec Baldwin's brief moment in the movie is the kind of monologue actors dream of delivering. Al Pacino's slick as silk Richard Roma, the all-star closer of the team, is a hurricane of bravado and BS. Everybody, every single actor, is at their very best here, delivering complex character development solely through the rapid-fire (and extraordinarily profane) dialogue. And it's that facet that also makes this movie exhausting and kind of a drag. I don't need explosions and blood and nudity to make a movie exciting, but this movie could literally be described as "two guys have a conversation, then one guy talks on the phone, rinse, repeat". I know it's from a stage play, so it's going to be dialogue-heavy, but at some point, the avalanche of verbiage is just too much. Not one moment in this movie is allowed to happen and sit with you. You never get the chance to breath and let the stakes or the ramifications of something impress its weight upon you. It's just WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS. I needed a break, and more, I wanted some kind of plot development to happen that wasn't delivered in words alone. And even when the movie finally injects some plot into the proceedings, it's so deep into the runtime, I was beyond caring at that point. The dialogue crackles and is almost a character unto itself (although it uses far too much profanity, and I'm not shy about the curse words one fuckin' bit), but what it never does is make me care about any of these guys. This movie is a masterclass in acting, but it's also as empty as it is vulgar.