I don't know if this is a great movie, but it is engaging and well acted for the most part.Some of it is predictable, but it has turns and deep emotions at times that can suck you in.I want to really talk about the ending and it's meaning to me.I go back to the scene where he sells the little old lady so well she gives him all she has. He talks about his Mom and how he doesn't trust anyone since her death. Well that really is not true at that moment. He trusts and is falling in love with his new girlfriend, and he still trusts his friend as is very visible when he shows up in the middle of the night and he carries him in without any reservation.The character that Vince Vaughn plays for all his flaws is still a romantic hoping that people are good even as he watches them do the very worst to others.The ending where he gets truly used and abused is the ending of that hope. I think he takes that in, cuts all his ties as he leaves his friend cooking breakfast (still a glimmer left as he leaves him the $1000, although you could say he couldn't stand to spend it himself as it is lesson money) and goes to finally sell his soul as he goes out to find the next scam where he won't get taken again, because he doesn't trust anyone now.

Ed Harris, freshly out of the slams, hires a bunch of telemarketers to make cold calls and sell a gold mine. Julia Ormond, his girl friend, is his right-hand woman. Vince Vaughn is the most hard-headed and cynical of the hired salesmen. Harris tells Vaughn and the rest that this is not a scam. That he truly believes in this venture, that they will all make a lot of money and will do good while amassing their fortunes. As in much of life, these windy promises with their pellucid purity, turn out to be part of a mega-scam and everyone winds up sucking wind except Harris and Ormond. Vaughn winds up sadder -- and certainly broker -- but not necessarily wiser.This conspectus, I realize, makes the film sound like a poor man's independent production of "Glenngary Glenn Ross," and it is. It could have been written by David Mammon himself. I mean Mamet.Actually this is a good film, nicely done in every respect. The script especially is a winner through and through.Inquiring about a new job, an applicant asks, "Are there benefits?" "Yeah, you get to eat and pay the rent." A caller is being turned down by a potential customer and hollers into the phone, "**** you, you dried-up old bag. I hope the cancer kills you!" "GENE!", his boss shouts in alarm. "Okay, okay," Gene continues reasonably into the phone, "I was just kidding. But listen, suppose the cancer does spread and kill you, and you've never been to Hawaii. How's THAT going to make you feel?" The boss advises another recruit, "It's a bad idea to greet your customer by asking, 'Are you high?'" When Vaughn quizzes Harris about the job, he demands daily cash payments. "Okay," says Harris, "you got it, but instead of 20 percent it's 17 percent because it's a pain in the ass for book keeping." A less thoughtful and realistic script, sticking to the bare conventions, would not have added that final fillip.All the characters are surprisingly well fleshed out, and the direction is functional without being in any way splashy or full of self display.There is no Big Message behind the film, unless you want to get into something too chiliastic for human consumption, but it's well worth watching, amusing and instructive.

Telemarketeers...just the sound of it makes some of us cringe because not everyone likes those telemarketers to 'harass' us over the phone over something they want to promote on.And when moral questions are being raised about what is right and wrong, it has become a grey area. This is where Penny Wise (Vince Vaughn) has to deal with his own conscience.Scamming people through the phone is what Penny is good at for his job as a telemarketer, and when he was being hired to be part of this million-dollar scam, he was rather being hesitant at first. It's where his conscience starts to collide.Very interesting and quirky look at telemarketers who scam for the sake of money. Vince Vaughn portrayed it that well.Guess I will never see those telemarketers the same way again.

I once worked for an old line telemarketing company. I was the guy who trained sales people, not telemarketers who read scripts. I was also the guy who filled phone dialing consoles with scammers when it came time to bid contracts, scammers being the type of people I could not hire for anything other than contract bids. Scammers are good. If you take a deep breath, they can close a sale on that. So, movies like The Prime Gig and Glengarry Glen Ross are fascinating because, if you pay attention, you'll get to see things that most people never get to see, never mind believe. The Prime Gig is well done and more than real enough for those who like stories about scams. The acting is good and there's an absence of melodrama. Everything is done straight up. Movies like this are difficult to end but here we are given a real life ending. The ending works. The movie works. I very much enjoyed it.