A generation after Lee J. Cobb originated the role on stage and Fredric March did the big screen version, Dustin Hoffman does a really great job as Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman in a made for television version. It's a bit more surreal than the others but Arthur Miller's message about misplaced values certainly gets across.

All poor Willy Loman wanted to be was be liked and that to him became a creed. It's how you sell your product, it's how you sell yourself. He loved his family, but he was always 'on'. And forever envious of brother Ben who went out and took risks but saw the world.

Hoffman was years younger than March or Cobb, but with makeup he certainly looks the part. Kate Reid plays the wife and John Malkovich and Stephen Lang are sons Biff and Hap. They really function well as the Loman family unit and the chemistry is real.

Seeing how much purchasing is now done on line, I wonder if a lot of the message of Death Of A Salesman will be lost in the future. An audience in the future might not know what a salesman is or does as personal contact in buying and selling becomes less and less.

I certainly hope not.

Struggling traveling salesman Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman) returns home to his loving wife Linda (Kate Reid). His former football star son Biff (John Malkovich) has returned home after failing in the outside world. His younger son Happy (Stephen Lang) worships his older brother. In contrast, his neighbor Charley (Charles Durning) raised successful nerdy son Bernard. His dead older brother Ben became a diamond tycoon from nothing and his ideal American dream. His boss Howard Wagner fires him despite his years of service.

The style is strip down minimalist. It faithfully does the Arthur Miller play. Its greatness comes from the terrific Hoffman performance. The rest of cast is no slouch. It's TV doing high class American culture and doing it well. Honestly, high school kids studying the play should watch this.

On the age of sixty and something years, the salesman Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman) realizes that he is a loser and his empty life was a worthless fraud. The disturbed and deranged Willy becomes delusional, mixing fantasy and reality, and disclosing secrets of his family.

"Death of the Salesman" is a very depressive and tragic theatrical movie with awesome performances, mainly of Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid and John Malkovitch. I have never read Arthur Miller's novel or seen the movie or the play; therefore I did not expect such a sad story with so complex characters. The story, in the 40's, shows the evil face of the capitalism (and the American Dream),and the character of Dustin Hoffman becomes insane when he sees that he is a loser and his life a complete failure: he is paying the last installment of his old house after thirty years of sacrifice; his sons have not been successful in life; his old car is broken; his old refrigerator needs repair; he does not have any money after more than thirty years working for the same company and in the end he is treated like a street dog and fired. For a viewer that does not know this drama (like me),I recommend to see this movie in a happy day, otherwise he or she may become too much depressed with such heart-breaking story. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Morte do Caixeiro-Viajante" ("Death of the Salesman")