A great “sales” scene from Boiler Room (2000), written and directed by Ben Younger and staring Giovanni Ribisi, Ben Affleck, Scott Caan, Vin Diesel and Nia Long. The movie was just so-so, but the scene in which Ben Affleck’s character (Jim Young) explains things to a bunch of trainees in a small-time brokerage house is… chilling.

Jim Young: “Goddammit, you fuckin’ guys. I’m gonna keep this short, okay? You passed your sevens over a month ago. Seth’s the only one that’s opened the necessary forty accounts for his team leader. When I was a junior broker I did it in 26 days. Okay? You’re not sendin’ out press packets anymore. None of this Debbie the Time Life operator bullshit. So get on the phones, it’s time to get to work. Get off your ass! Move around. Motion creates emotion. I remember one time I had this guy call me up, wanted to pitch me, right? Wanted to sell me stock. So I let him. I got every fuckin rebuttal outta this guy, kept him on the phone for an hour and a half. Towards the end I started askin him buying questions, like what’s the firm minimum? That’s a buying question, right there that guys gotta take me down. It’s not like I asked him, what’s your 800 number, that’s fuckoff question. I was givin him a run and he blew it. Okay? To a question like what is the firm minimum, the answer is zero. You don’t like the idea, don’t pick up a single share. But this putz is tellin me you know, uhh, 100 shares? Wrong answer! No! You have to be closing all the time. And be aggressive, learn how to push! Talk to ’em. Ask ’em questions… ask ’em rhetorical questions, it doesn’t matter, anything, just get a yes out of ’em. If you’re drowning and I throw you a life jacket would you grab it? Yes! Good. Pick up 200 shares I won’t let you down. Ask them how they’d like to see thirty, forty percent returns. What are they gonna say, no? Fuck you? I don’t wanna see those returns. Stop laughing, it’s not funny. If you can’t learn how to close, you better start thinkin about another career. And I am deadly serious about that. Dead fuckin serious. And have your rebuttals ready, guy says call me tommorrow? Bullshit! Somebody tells you th-they money problems about buyin 200 shares is lying to you. You know what I say to that? I say, hey look, man, tell me you don’t like my firm, tell me you don’t like my idea, tell me you don’t like my fuckin neck tie, but don’t tell me you can’t put together 2,500 bucks. And there is no such thing as a no-sell call. A sell is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can’t. Either way, a sell is made. The only question is: who’s gonna close? You or him?! Now be relentless. That’s it, I’m done.”

Kind of makes me wonder if Ben Younger liked the Glengarry Glen Ross scene as much as I did.

In thirty years I’ve been in on or part of countless sales meetings, sales seminars and sales calls. But David Mamet boiled it all down to one great scene in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. It’s the “Always Be Closing, Always Be A Closer” scene in which Blake (Alec Baldwin) is confronting the employees of a tough Chicago real-estate office, Shelley Levene (Jack Lemmon), Ed Moss (Ed Harris) and George Aaronow (Alan Arkin) while their unsympathetic supervisor John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) looks on. If you would like, this monologue I’m sure can be edited into one incredibly long one, if you want to take out the lines from the other actors.

Blake: Let me have your attention for a moment! So you’re talking about what? You’re talking about…(puts out his cigarette)…bitching about that sale you shot, some son of a bitch that doesn’t want to buy, somebody that doesn’t want what you’re selling, some broad you’re trying to screw and so forth. Let’s talk about something important. Are they all here? Continue reading →

Let’s not argue about whether True Romance (1993) is the best movie of the past twenty years. Not many people would agree with me on that. But the scene between Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken is –without a doubt– the best scene in a movie in the last twenty years . I wish I could be more flexible on this point but it just the best acting (and reacting) by two great actors in the last couple of decades.

The movie stars Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette, but includes small but wonderful performances by Brad Pitt, Samuel L. Jackson and James Gandolfini.

The movie was directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State, Spy Game and others). Quinton Tarantino wrote most of the movie but apparently got a couple of scenes from Roger Avary who –according to the Internet Movie Database– met Quentin Tarantino at a video store they both worked at in the 1980’s. I really think this was Tarantino at his best (the movie, not the video store).

Favorite quotes:

[In the Night Club after Drexel has beaten Clarence.]
Drexel Spivey: He must have thought it was white boy day. It ain’t white boy day, is it?
Marty: No man, It ain’t white boy day.

Vincenzo Coccotti: The Anti-Christ. You get me in a vendetta kind of mood, you tell the angels in heaven you never seen evil so singularly personified as you did in the face of the man who killed you. My name is Vincent Coccotti.

Alabama: If you gave me a million years to ponder, I would’ve never guessed that true romance and Detroit would ever go together.

But you have to see and hear this great cast deliver these great lines and scenes. Buy the DVD.