amazon-239-767885 I had to watch stop watching this movie halfway through due to the astonishingly mannered over-acting by Spacey. Both his co-actors seemed to be in another film, acting normally. Every gesture, look, word from Spacey had a hypnotic fascination, each one ghastlier than the last. I hadn't noticed this in Spacey movies before, but I think The Big Kahuna will probably affect anything I see him in in the future and probably not in a good way! I wonder if the director had anything to do with the film or whether Spacey just took over and was allowed to do whatever he wanted. Instead of trying to listen to the words of what may have been a good play I spent my time watching what the actors were doing, not listening to what they were saying.

chaos-rampant This is a film in the theatric vein of Glengarry Glen Ross and other David Mamet. Three salesmen, two older ones and the greenhorn protégé, are in a hotel room in Witchita to make an important pitch on lubricants. The film is almost entirely confined to the room, played over the course of a day and night.Liking it means you're going to be able to find Spacey's ironic patter to be more than empty flourish, the greenhorn not to be unbelievable and annoying as a character (a religious idealist in sales must be like finding a puritan call-girl), while preferably getting something out of the philosophical discussion pitched to us as deep. None of which was true for me, so I pass.DeVito is the sole reason to watch this if you want glimmers of truth and not mere cleverness. He shows what a great actor he can be, look how he plays to the air around him.His parting speech is beautiful of course. The realization is important in itself: honesty, empathy, regret, as openness and growth. Yet even here something feels off. Maybe it's the particular constraints imposed by this theatric format, maybe it's the manipulable artificiality inherent in a speech, but even this powerful moment, especially this, feels only like a sales pitch to an audience.

j-r-lakeside This felt like. This looked like. This tasted like. And this was enjoyed like a Coen Brothers film. Would also be a great stage production. Need I say more.Wait I have to say more or they won't post this review???Gee golly I liked this film a lot. Seriously, if your brain works at all, and if you happen to be a Coen Bro. fan, you will absolutely enjoy this movie. An excellent, well written script. Excellent acting - though I have to admit as much as I like Kevin Spacey, he is always Kevin Spacy in his parts. Hopefully this is now long enough to post. Hopefully you will see this film. Enjoy!

bobbobwhite Terrific existential angst study done by two of the best actors working today, Kevin Spacy as desperate Larry and Danny DeVito as worn-out Phil.... long time salesmen buddies hoping to make the one big killer sale that had eluded both of their mediocre careers to date and that would make everything seemingly right again. The location for the film was exactingly placed in a bland hotel in bland Wichita, Kansas, a worthy stand-in metaphor for the nothingness of existence where the great things of life are in very short supply for these two good friends who are impatiently waiting for the fabled company president Dick Fuller to arrive to provide that life saving big sale that would give them new purpose and reason to feel good about themselves again. Who would ever guess that a big order for industrial lubricants could do that? Transferring very intelligent and talky plays to the screen often doesn't work well, but when it does it is magical and deeply involving. It worked so very well here, and intelligently so, as Spacey and DeVito were wonderful playing off each other as salesmen friends so familiar that talk between them was almost like talking to oneself, or at least to one's wife. It was obvious that they loved each other as well as most marrieds do, as much of their dialogue was similar to that of a married couple, and the story's diverse philosophical meanderings that ranged from marketing to religion to love to marriage to character and to, of course, the meaning of life and the real value of shrimp versus cheese ball snacks, were all the more effective due not only to the well crafted script, but also due to the world-weary resignation of the lead characters playing off their near opposite, a wet-behind-the ears, young company research newbie named Bob who was oddly sent with them to the convention. Bob was innocently sincere and mostly good hearted, but at the same time was cocky and smug about things he knew almost nothing about but thought he knew so well. His gently delivered, but harsh and well-earned comeuppance at the end from DeVito's Phil was the one great thing that I knew all along was coming, and I was so glad when it came down hard on this naive, supercilious, and self-righteous member of the fundamental religious right. But sadly, as he dumbly disagreed with his comeuppance details that were so obviously dead on, Bob was not at that time wise enough to know that he had so much more to learn over the years before he could claim possession of any appreciable amount of human character. From this, such familiar feelings were surely evoked in all of us who once happened to be similarly young and naive as Bob is here. And, as it turned out the same way as in much of real life, the "big sale" was not made. Or.... was it? Truly a philosophical thinking person's film and one to be seen again and again for full value.There was a bit of resolve in what served as an epilogue, as it showed that these three ended up pretty much the same as they began, but somewhat tweaked for the better. Hopefully, like we all do.