James Foley
Americani

Film from 1992, directed by James Foley, with a lean and essential form, featuring simplified settings to highlight dialogues and acting performances, intense and gripping in its one and a half hour duration.

Excellent cast: Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Kevin Spacey, Ed Harris, Alec Baldwin, and Alan Arkin. A slim and impeccable screenplay, with an intense and successful realistic approach, great work by David Mamet.

Sharp in expressions, forceful in intentions, the film denounces the demands of an American company (any company, if you will) that cannot and will not afford not to achieve results. Maximize efficiency, cut costs, reward the winners, and kick out those who do not deliver decent outcomes. In this scenario, the picture is defined by four colleagues/rivals, land plot sellers who are pressured by an angry central office executive reminding them that their job security isn’t guaranteed if efficiency declines. Beyond the extremely brutal tones, the employees are humiliated, mistreated, threatened.

Here emerge the anxieties and fears of men clinging to any possible solution to "survive," to not lose their jobs. There's anger, despair, grit, fear. Different reactions, some driven by desperation leading to unethical actions against the company, against colleagues. All in almost brutal terms, with crude, fierce, cutting language. No one is spared.

In Jack Lemmon's eyes, one reads the greatness of an actor who amazes with the intensity of his dramatic role. Every step is filled with passion for this role. A performance that stirs the guts. Stellar acting performances that, as in Al Pacino's case, showcase great style, great personality, and acting creativity that transcends into the character, namely the salesman, making him impressively credible. And so it engages, convinces, creates tension. Ed Harris is also strong, full of anger, Baldwin is powerful as the executive sent to wake up the "underperforming" team.

It's an extremely dramatic film, hinting that there’s no room for patience or living off past successes. Results or get the hell out. "Are you a good father? I don't give a damn, go play with your kids, but get the hell out of here, you need to think about closing deals." And there is no room for personal dramas or problems because work is the first thought, channeling all energy, all the time, making everything else inevitably blurry and desperately unmanageable.

A complete and frightening, but unfortunately real, picture of the American corporate reality and the victims it inevitably creates. A product of undeniable quality.