play-written by David Mamet (later made into a film of the same name)

Like a great deal of Mamet's work, this is about how men talk to one another and how the communications are always multifaceted, and usually false. Mamet wants to use "the sales pitch"-the closing of the deal as his central point. But as usual, his characters spin away from this point like asteroids-in all directions. To say that this is a movie about salesman selling timeshares is like saying Psycho is about motel management.

In the film version of this play Kevin Spacey and Al Pacino have large parts, although they are both on the screen for brief periods of time (less than 30 minutes each). Their dialogue is so sharp-so acidic, that is hangs with you. Spacey- at his most bitter, his most uninterested . Pacino, smooth as glass, making the sale, getting the job done. The ubersaleman. Selling without offering. You are mesmerized as he convinces a man who doesn't want something that he can't live without it. This his whole existence would lack meaning without this chance, this thing, this potential for greatness.

The play and the film, are wicked, meanspirited and breathtaking. These are not people you learn to like. But they are certainly real.