DOASKDOTELL MOVIE REVIEW of Diamond Men, 100 Mile Rule, Glengarry Glen Ross, Big Fish, In Good Company , Salesman, Death of a Salesman
Title: Diamond Men |
Release Date: 2000/2002 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 100 Minutes |
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Distributor and Production Company: |
Director; Writer: Daniel M. Cohen |
Producer: Daniel M. Cohen |
Cast: Robert Forster, Donnie Wahlberg, Bess Armstrong, Jasmine Guy |
Technical: |
Relevance to doaskdotell site: |
Review: Once again, it is a pleasure to see
an small independent film, shot entirely
on location, this time in The film starts as Eddie Miller (Robert Forster) croaks with a heart attack in a parking lot, and three months later is told my his boss that he must be terminated from his job as a traveling diamond salesman because, with his health compromised, the employer’s insurance company will no longer underwrite the protection of his booty when he goes on the road. He bangs on the desk and begs for his job (he’ll get a begrudging severance) and his boss agrees to let him train a replacement, Bobby Walker (Donnie Wahlberg) and then, they’ll see .. kind of like not wanting to fail a grade. Well, Bobby shows up with a fire-engine red
sports car… he has a lot to learn, very cocky, all right. Eddie is
pretty disgusted with Bobby’s impudence. They go from town to town
and stay in cheap motels so as not to attract the attention of
thieves. And the company insists that they share motel rooms. Well,
in discussing the military gay ban I talked about forced intimacy on
the road in civilian jobs (like in DeMuth
v. Miller). So Donnie starts bringing girls into the motel and,
after blowing it with premature ejaculations, starts getting Eddie
out of his shell—he had lost his wife to cancer. Eventually they
start visiting massage parlor, a best little whorehouse in The movie gets really intimate and close-up. Like when Bess gives Eddie a massage, you see his shiny calves… she comments on how muscular they are and evades mentioning how he has obviously gone bald on the legs with aging. My own father was a traveling manufacturer’s representative for Imperial Glass, and his territory included these same towns in Pennsylvania, and in 1971 he was forced to retire (at age 68) because of his age. They replaced him with a younger man. The diamond business is a very tense one. It
played a role in the novel and film For more about the global political problems of the diamond business, see the review of Blood Diamond (link below). This little gem reminds me of Jerome’s Razor, a regional film, all on location, with all too human characters (with the younger ones rather charismatic), natural dialogue, and a close-up intensity. Donnie Wahlberg (Marky Mark’s brother) brings tremendous enthusiasm and virility to his role in this film. Another film that satirizes sales culture, this
time in more overtly comic fashion, 100
Mile Rule (2002, Honeydo),
produced by Eric Gustafson and John Nelson, directed by Brent Huff,
written by Drew Pillsburg, with Jake
Webber, Maria Bello, David Thornton,
Michael McKean, Nick Chinlund. Three
businessmen go away from their family lives in suburban If this movie finds a major corporate distributor, it will make big $$$. Miramax, Fox Searchlight, Lions Gate, and New Market ought to bid on this one. Salesman (1968, Janus, dir. Albert and David Maysles, 90 min), a "direct cinema" (or "cinema verite) look at four Bible salesmen. Blogger. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992, New Line Cinema, dir. James Foley, wr. David Mamet, based on his own play, R, 100 min), referred to above, is of course the ultimate satire of sales culture, in this case real estate sales, where people are driven into constant hucksterism for fear not only of being fired but of psychic emasculation. The notions of extroverted virility are well presented by the cast: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, and hairy man Alec Baldwin. Another film about sales culture is Universal’s mainstream In Good Company (2005, dir. Paul Weitz, 131 min, PG-13. It reminds me a bit of the 1987 film Wall Street with Michael Douglas (“Greed is good!”). And Chris Weitz (who played the “masculine guy” in Chuck and Buck) is paired up with Paul as an executive producer. Now the story is safe and formulaic even in its variations on familiar themes and screenplay turning points. Here Dan Foreman, and a 52-year-old advertising executive, finds himself demoted after a corporate merger (perhaps an 80s style Irwin Jacobs-like hostile takeover) as he reports to a 26-year-old Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), whose boyish skin rather shines. Dan is a dedicated Family Man, and his 51-year-old wife is actually having a baby, and his teenage daughter “needs” the first rate education at NYU. Now one twist is that Carter, after a divorce, will fall for Dan’s college freshman daughter Alex (Scarlet Johansson). In fact, their bedroom scene with the too-boyish Carter’s upper body undressing almost seems like a gay scene, heterosexual in name only. But more twists occur as Carter’s company gets taken over again. Dan’s sales techniques are well developed, based on long-standing relationships and “synergy” with existing customers. The film is stereotyped enemy-Hollywood, yet it rather works as Carter grows as a character during the film and becomes a man. His word choice improves, as does his wisdom, as when he explains in a bar that he doesn’t fire Dan because “people need you.” There are several firing scenes, but the way they happen in real life (with the computer turning off your account while you work) is even more interesting. Death of a Salesman (1985, CBS, dir. Volker Schlondorff, 135 min) is a television literal rendition of Arthur Miller’s play. Dustin Hoffman plays Willy Loman, a 60-year-old salesman whose career is ending (he tries to get a home job and then is fired). His wife (Kate Reid) is disappointed with their two freeloading sons (Biff, with a riveting performance by a young John Makovich, and Harold (Stephen Lang). Presumably they could help the family out (as was expected by family solidarity and filial responsibility in these pre New Deal days), but they have bummed along themselves. There is a great confrontation between Biff and his dad at the end, when Biff cries “I am nothing. I am just what I am.” Then there is catastrophe, and Eternity. Earlier dad makes multiple prejudicial statements, like “I am who can’t handle tools is not a man.” That’s probably what my own father believed. The play does not question sales culture and pit it off against creativity as much as it could, although John Makovich tries to bring that out with his acting of Biff’s part. “Willy was a salesman…” Nick of Time (1995); Nixon (1995); The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004) (and The Plot to Kill Nixon); Death of a President (2006); May 6th (2004); Submission (2004, short; Have a Good Weekend in Spite of Everything (2005)), The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair (2007) were all moved to the hyperlink shown here.
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Related reviews: Jerome’s Razor The Men Who Killed Kennedy Blood Diamond Shooter The Assassination of Richard Nixon |
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