The Prime Gig (2001)

Wow! Such a good movie.

Perfectly adorable

Load of rubbish!!

good back-story, and good acting

Imagine eating an Oreo cookie with the cream filling removed or a jelly donut with the jelly sucked out of it. The cookie sides of the Oreo and the donut itself would still be tasty, but you wouldn't be getting what you wanted or expected out of either. The experience would not be unpleasant, just unsatisfying. The Prime Gig is a film where most of the conflict has been extracted. There are still things to enjoy while watching it, but it's a fundamentally boring story.Penny (Vince Vaughn) is a salesman, currently selling travel packages of dubious legality in a bottom-of-the-barrel telemarketing firm. He's the most successful one in the storefront office, which is a little like being the thinnest fat person at Weight Watchers. The rest of the crew are either desperate losers or bitter malcontents.When that job goes up in smoke, Penny is recruited to work for Kelly Grant (Ed Harris), a legendary figure of somewhat questionable business practices. Grant claims to have a gold mine worth $30 million and needs Penny and a warehouse full of other phone salespeople to get $2.5 million worth of investors to sign on to the project. Penny thinks it's a scam, even after Grant goes to extravagant lengths to prove otherwise, but doesn't care as long as he gets paid immediately for every sale he makes. The tempting presence of Grant's beautiful associate, Caitlin (Julia Ormond), is also on Penny's mind and other, more southern parts of his anatomy.While all that's going on, Penny is also trying to help a childhood friend named Joel (Rory Cochrane). Joel is crippled, lazy, pretentious and self-destructive. Why Joel is all of those things and why Penny makes extraordinary efforts to help him is never explained or even hinted at.After a rough start, Penny begins to rack up sales and boink the hell out of Caitlin. That just goes on for a while, giving Vince Vaughn and Julia Ormond a few decent scenes together and then the story simply swirls down the drain. There's a twist at the end that is pulled off in the most backasswards way imaginable and Penny is left to walk down the sidewalk as the closing credits roll.As I mentioned earlier, there are some good things in The Prime Gig. Vaughn and Ormond are very engaging. She also shows off a breast, which is greatly appreciated. The crew at the storefront, including Wallace Shawn, George Wendt and Stephen Tobolowsky, are very entertaining in their misery. It's also fun to listen to Penny and the rest of Grant's team try to manipulate people into investing in the supposed gold mine.All of that is undermined by the tedious lack of conflict in this movie. Some exists at the beginning, where everyone at the storefront is angry with each other and fearful of losing their jobs. It all disappears when Penny joins up with Grant. There's no meaningful conflict between Penny and Grant, Penny and Caitlin, Grant and Caitlin, Penny and the salesman competing with him to be number one, Penny and Joel, Caitlin and Joel or really any other combination of characters. There's a silly attempt late in the film at inner conflict with Penny, but it's so contrived that no one could take it seriously.The bottom line of The Prime Gig is that you spend the last two-thirds of the movie waiting for anything to happen and nothing does, until something happens at the very end that you knew was going to happen from the first second Kelly Grant was mentioned. This film has a few moments of interest breaking up the dullness, like driving through Nebraska and seeing topless hitchhiker every 150 miles, but unless you've got really long attention span, this movie isn't worth your time.

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.

And this is his genre!. He portrays Penny Wise, a guy just trying to pay his rent in southern California. Sales and corruption; yes we may have seen some of this before, but you will get a few original lines, and Vaughn is excellent.Ed Harris as the telemarketing felon, running a "room" has the whole scenario set up. Vaughn, Stephen Tobolowsky, Wallace Shawn, George Wendt and a few other choice character actors set the stage for disenfranchised sales people in Southern California. While the theme is familiar, the actors add that ambiance and feeling of job insecurity.If you liked "Office Space"; "Glengarry, Glen Ross", you will enjoy this. Worth more than one viewing, and highly recommended!. 8/10.

I love watching movies. I work for blockbuster for God's sakes....I watch movies all the time. I thought this movie had a good premise and that the actiing was fine(although not stellar). The thing that bothers me about this movie was the ending...it left too many unanswered questions....to many unknowns....It is good for a bored night when u don't have anything else to do but don't ask questions after it's over because they will be unanswered and unknown...big dissappointment. Overall decent movie but not great. if you can see it for free like I did...it's not a bad way to spend an hour and a half if not...wait till it comes on cable