Glengarry Glen Ross and The Deer Hunter

Saw two old films on DVD. One movie is about selling and salesmen, and the other about the Vietnam war from a humanitarian point of view. Both are terrific in their own way.

Glengarry..is based on a play centred in a real estate firm. A spent old salesman (Jack Lemmon is stupendous), a star salesman (Al Pacino in a very good role), and a blood-sucking boss (Kevin Spacey) make up the main star cast of this movie that takes you through the twists and turns, triumphs and tragedies of a salesman's life through the examples of the first two. Brilliantly scripted, it is riveting drama of the politics of distributing leads among salesmen, incentive systems, intrigue, smooth tongues, beating the system, etc...Keeps you engrossed with some great actors playing their parts well.

The Deer Hunter is a warm human drama about three Pennsylvania steel workers forced to leave their tranquil life behind and go to the gory reality of Vietnam. The barbarism and futility of war is brought out starkly, with one losing his limbs, the other going crazy and only one (Robert De Niro) returning safely, but also deeply affected. The Deer Hunting episode at the beginning and end of the film serves as an analogy for violence, and the hero, a sharp-shooter at first, deliberately misses a targeted deer at the end, after his war experience. Meryl Streep is the heroine, in an endearing character who waits fruitlessly for her hubby to return from Vietnam.