Last chance for a quick buck

Wednesday, 01 September 2010 18:08

Written by Editor

By Ricky Leach

Here on the costa, there can’t be many people haven’t been subjected to the pressures of hard selling in one form or another.  With thousands of properties for sale as potentially profitable investments or holiday homes sure to make their owners lots of cash,  there have been plenty of opportunities for sharp talking sales people to sell a slice of Spanish bricks and mortar. That’s without even talking about timeshare, an industry that has had a history of hard selling.  It can be a cruel, hard world with salesmen under  pressure to perform  - perfect for a tense movie storyline but rooted in reality.

It is the selling of property investments that forms the basis of the plot for the acclaimed 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross. With a cast list that reads like a who’s who of Hollywood’s finest, it follows the tactics and traumas of a company of estate agents, each locked into a cycle of bad leads, slow sales and poor performance. Alec Baldwin plays Blake, the hard hitting motivator sent by the company’s owners to shake up the old fashioned sales office. Brash, ruthless and successful, he sets the four salesmen in the office against each other, telling them that they have technically been fired but that there are two positions available for the best performers. If they can make something overnight out of the leads they already have, they can be re-employed and take advantage of the new leads for the lucrative Glengarry Highlands development.

An office burglary reveals that  the new leads  have been stolen, and while detectives question the staff about the theft, the heat is turned up as a client arrives to pull out of a deal made by top salesman Ricky Roma, played by Al Pacino. In a series of contradicting stories and lies, the client’s deal is lost and a slip of the tongue reveals the perpetrator of the theft to be Jack Lemmon’s character, Levene. Kevin Spacey plays the mean office manager and Ed Harris is smooth as Dave Moss, the original mastermind behind the leads theft. The film ends as Levene heads into the office to face the detectives and his inevitable downfall.

A very different group of salesmen feature in The Boiler Room,  released in 2000, starring Ben Affleck and Vin Diesel. Selling over the telephone from a nondescript office, the young and enthusiastic sales team have to shift stocks and shares at hugely inflated prices, creating artificial demand in the market. Expert deal closer Chris Varick ( Diesel), is given the job of training 19- year-old recruit Seth Davis, (Giovanni Ribisi). But Davis is picked up by the FBI, who have been monitoring the unethical practices, and he is persuaded to help bring the firm down.

Knowing the FBI are planning a midday raid Davis copies incriminating documents onto a floppy disk  and tips off Varick  about  FBI raid.The end of the film sees Seth Davis walk away from the office as FBI agents arrive to storm the building.

The irony  is that the films show the downfall of lying and dodgy salesmen and yet from personal experience, I know that scenes from both movies have been used in motivational exercises in sales rooms along the coast. Life imitating art imitating life.