Ed Harris, freshly out of the slams, hires a bunch of telemarketers to make cold calls and sell a gold mine. Julia Ormond, his girl friend, is his right-hand woman. Vince Vaughn is the most hard-headed and cynical of the hired salesmen. Harris tells Vaughn and the rest that this is not a scam. That he truly believes in this venture, that they will all make a lot of money and will do good while amassing their fortunes. As in much of life, these windy promises with their pellucid purity, turn out to be part of a mega-scam and everyone winds up sucking wind except Harris and Ormond. Vaughn winds up sadder -- and certainly broker -- but not necessarily wiser.
This conspectus, I realize, makes the film sound like a poor man's independent production of "Glenngary Glenn Ross," and it is. It could have been written by David Mammon himself. I mean Mamet.
Actually this is a good film, nicely done in every respect. The script especially is a winner through and through.
Inquiring about a new job, an applicant asks, "Are there benefits?" "Yeah, you get to eat and pay the rent." A caller is being turned down by a potential customer and hollers into the phone, "**** you, you dried-up old bag. I hope the cancer kills you!" "GENE!", his boss shouts in alarm. "Okay, okay," Gene continues reasonably into the phone, "I was just kidding. But listen, suppose the cancer does spread and kill you, and you've never been to Hawaii. How's THAT going to make you feel?" The boss advises another recruit, "It's a bad idea to greet your customer by asking, 'Are you high?'" When Vaughn quizzes Harris about the job, he demands daily cash payments. "Okay," says Harris, "you got it, but instead of 20 percent it's 17 percent because it's a pain in the ass for book keeping." A less thoughtful and realistic script, sticking to the bare conventions, would not have added that final fillip.
All the characters are surprisingly well fleshed out, and the direction is functional without being in any way splashy or full of self display.
There is no Big Message behind the film, unless you want to get into something too chiliastic for human consumption, but it's well worth watching, amusing and instructive.
This conspectus, I realize, makes the film sound like a poor man's independent production of "Glenngary Glenn Ross," and it is. It could have been written by David Mammon himself. I mean Mamet.
Actually this is a good film, nicely done in every respect. The script especially is a winner through and through.
Inquiring about a new job, an applicant asks, "Are there benefits?" "Yeah, you get to eat and pay the rent." A caller is being turned down by a potential customer and hollers into the phone, "**** you, you dried-up old bag. I hope the cancer kills you!" "GENE!", his boss shouts in alarm. "Okay, okay," Gene continues reasonably into the phone, "I was just kidding. But listen, suppose the cancer does spread and kill you, and you've never been to Hawaii. How's THAT going to make you feel?" The boss advises another recruit, "It's a bad idea to greet your customer by asking, 'Are you high?'" When Vaughn quizzes Harris about the job, he demands daily cash payments. "Okay," says Harris, "you got it, but instead of 20 percent it's 17 percent because it's a pain in the ass for book keeping." A less thoughtful and realistic script, sticking to the bare conventions, would not have added that final fillip.
All the characters are surprisingly well fleshed out, and the direction is functional without being in any way splashy or full of self display.
There is no Big Message behind the film, unless you want to get into something too chiliastic for human consumption, but it's well worth watching, amusing and instructive.