A terrifically acted movie with all-star-cast based on a foul-mouthed story from Jesús Gil Vilda and director Xavi Puebla himself. Salva (Antonio Dechent) is a home appliance salesman who is not going through his best moment. If he doesn't want to lose his job, he must sell 500 units in three days at an important trade fair. There he meets Inés (María Valverde) , an ambitious hostess with whom he joins forces to woo a powerful executive, Mr. Bettleworth (Nick Nolte). They form a bond and she tries help him to seal the deal. Chronicling some hours in the lives of some sleazy and unfortunate salesmen who will stop at nothing to get their purports and at whatever cost . But all of them are in danger of getting the ax from their hard-driving, stiff-upper-lipped, venomous bosses , acting as head-hunters . As the life-soured , short-fused salesmen are threatened of being fired if they don't sell enough .
A superbly played film with the greatest Spanish players giving powerful portrayals of appliance sellers .A dramatic movie with various character studios , shot in stage-style and in the wake of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross; this one had a magnificent cinematic adaptation in 1992 directed by James Foley with Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey. The cost of work at the expense of human warmth and the loss of personal identity are the key themes. With hardly any music, no effects, no color, the characters and their mediocre lives are the real protagonists of this film, on which director Xavi Puebla decides to focus entirely. A direct and uncomfortable account of that most bitter and anecdotal strain of capitalism, that of workers in apparent freedom who try to assume with the best cynicism sometimes, the hostility of demanding managers. It shows the extreme competence among various clerks of a company and their strong fights to get the sales for obtaining advantages and prizes .
Cast is frankly fabulous. Antonio Dechent leaves aside his usual secondary roles and takes the absolute lead role of the film providing a fabulous performance as a retiring electronics salesman who's desperately trying to sign a deal with a big client at an electronics show; supported here by a very competent Maria Valverde as the mean stewardess. The cast is completed by other supporting actors such as José Ángel Egido as hotel receptionist, José Luis García-Pérez , Héctor Colomé, Cesáreo Estébanez, Alex O'Dogherty , Alfonso Sánchez, Alberto López and the American actor NickNolte himself in a key but secondary role.
It contains an adequate and colourful cinematography by Mauro Herce shot in Sevilla, Andalucia. The motion picture was competently directed by Xavi Puebla, in his fourth feature film, providing from his standout cast some phenomenal interpretations .Xavi Puebla was born in 1969 in Barcelona, Spain. The film was very well received at the Málaga Film Festival in 2012, winning the Critics' Award and the Antonio Dechent Award for Best Actor, as well as the Young Jury Award at the Film Festival Inédito of Merida in 2003. Xavi Puebla is a writer and director, known for Noche de Fiesta (2002), Bienvenido a Farewell-Gutmann (2008), A puerta fría (2012) and Viernes (2002). Rating: 6.5/10. Better than average . Well worth watching.
