Three salesmen—a cynic (Kevin Spacey), a burnout (Danny DeVito) and a born-again Christian (Peter Facinelli)—prowl their convention hotel suite, fretting over the big sale that they hope will save the company and their careers. The original title of Roger Rueff’s play was
Hospitality Suite, which sounds like a Neil Simon comedy, and the film, a slick look into the spent soul of corporate America, is reminiscent of the bitter, nasty Simon of
The Prisoner of Second Avenue and
The Out-of-Towners. Rueff’s dialogue remains arch and stagy (“I’ve suddenly become aware of the lateness of things”), but actors love to sink their teeth into stuff like this. Spacey’s smug sarcasm has become a shtick, but he chews his lines with relish, while DeVito upstages him with a low-key, sensitive performance.