Opiniones de usuarios

Don Ameche plays a wonderful portrayal of an Italian Shoe repair man thrown into a world of mobsters. Somehow this has very little effect on his spirit or mood, and at the same time driving his caretaker(Joe Mantegna)absolutely insane. By the end of it's whirlwind tour you realize that the old man is very wise in taking it all in stride.It's especially good if you are a fan of Mafia movies like The Godfather and such because it shows a lot of really typical mob types to keep you interested.

This movie is a very laid back comedy that would entertain people from many different walks of life. I just told someone the other day that it's the best movie I know of that no one has heard of. If you get a chance see it!

I loved this picture. Mantegna and Ameche are so opposite and I really can't share the view of other people that Ameche is performing a "Being There." Ameche is much smarter, he realizes from the start something is wrong. First he declines the offer but he knows perfectly well these people will shoot him (remember the scene with the smoking lady). Then, the movie starts, and he's in charge, and he keeps in charge, he accepts a luncheon with a Don in LA., he finds money to get back to Chicago, he uses his coin to call the Las Vegas mob.

Nice, entertaining, two and a half stars. I laughed quite a bit. Must be my Italian roots.

Mamet is intrinsically the classical playwright. Things may change in life but the classical playwright begins the story with a shoe shine setting up his corner in the cobbler's shop and ends the story with a shoe shine. Even the mid-point of the film, when the 3 day dream is about to end, there is the short lecture on how to shine shoes.

Though all the actors provide commendable performances, the flow of the story is absorbing. There is a layer of human values and honesty that permeates the world of murders and mafia thugs. Mamet is able to use such contradictions to great effect--threats stated with considerable politeness, women who are apparently in charge (the woman overseeing the arrangements for the meal at the house, the mafia wife/moll in blue) and yet play no significant role, teasing the viewer as it were, use of hats and newspapers to cover faces that seem ridiculous as the story unfolds..

The epilogue makes you wonder if things do change. Change for one may not be change for another. Change for one may come in economic terms, for another in friendship.

Early Mamet's work seems to neglect women characters. I wonder why this is so evident.

Mamet is not an unalloyed mastermind in my book. He hits and misses.

Here, he (and Shel Silverstein) crafted a story that explores a few clever plot concepts, such as the vaguely "Inspector General"-style false-identity gimmick. No spoiler, there: It kicks in pretty early on and dominates things for most of the flick. Most of the comedy/tension of the flick revolves about that idea.

The truly touching stuff involves the ensemble work, and it's worth taking the flick in of an evening just for that.

Other than that, the structure/storyline of the flick is about 80% good, but about 20% sprinkled with confusing side-events that don't quite seem to mesh.

Mamet and Silverstein tried to engineer a truly compelling denouement, but it doesn't feel quite whole and organic and... compelling, to me. It's merely adequate, in my book.

But if you want to see truly inspired acting, driven by adequate direction, check it out.

"Things Changes" is a light-hearted look at what happens to an old Italian shoe shiner (Ameche) who's a naive patsy for the mob when a mafia flunky (Mantegna) takes them two of them to Tahoe for a last blast. This Mamet film has a lot of pluses not the least of which is Mantegna and Ameche together in one of Ameche's last films. The story is a cute comedy with a kind of sentimental "feel" to it. The kind of movie that's hard not to like.

Shoe-shiner Gino (Don Ameche) is hired to take the rap for a mafia murder. Two-bit gangster Jerry (Joe Mantegna) watches over Gino and gives him a weekend to remember.

"Things Change" was Mamet's directorial follow-up to "House of Games" and also takes place in the world of crime. The two films share many cast members, including Joe Mantegna, Ricky Jay, Mike Nussbaum, William H. Macy, and J. T. Walsh, as well as many production staff members. I love how Mamet seems to have his own "stock company" with Mantegna, Jay and Macy. There is something about an ensemble working together again and again that I enjoy.

This film was great and I appreciate that Mamet went more towards comedy. I love his dense language, but sometimes a little humor is good. And mob humor? The best. I have only recently come to appreciate Don Ameche, and this has to be one of his better, later roles.

Obviously, by my rating, you know I love this film. It is a desert island disc.

I read the other reviews and have some comments. These are not criticisms of others criticisms or accolades, just my own thoughts after having seen the movie so many times.

Having never been in the mafia myself (and I suspect that none of the other people rating this movie have been either), I find this work consistent with our cinematic understanding of the mafia. First of all, if the mafia does ask you for a favor which it thinks is fair sounding and you decline, depending upon the favor asked, security may demand that you be silenced (killed). Secondly, our cinematic understanding of the mafia also says that very few people, even in the mafia, truly know who, as it is put in the movie 'the man behind the man behind the man' might be. So, when the hotel staff and low level mafia flunkies (hooray for the blond WHM!) at the other end of the country, who are expecting to meet people they don't know, accept DA as someone very important, this is realistic. And with such a classic mafia stereotype as JM's character as front man, DA as shoe shine turned mafioso really sells. After all, DA is Italian and distinguished looking... as well as very old school. As for DA's new mafia friend, it is quite clear in the movie that the luck and skill of DA's character actually traversed some very high barriers to survive and flourish in the situation.

While the premise of the circumstance of the ending may be predictable (I don't want to give it away), the actual final actions and outcome are definitely not expected.

As for comparison to Mamet's other works, stage and screen, perhaps this isn't his "best." But in terms of appeal, it reaches many more people than most of his work... and in such a pleasing way without being daft. Entertainment and emotional appeal are not vices, even for Mamet.

And just because a movie makes you smile and laugh, that doesn't make it a comedy... merely comedic. This is a dark drama, a human study, and features friendship and betrayal. Perhaps the comedic and light-hearted aspects are merely the glue that holds this piece so well together. The glue may be on the surface, but that doesn't mean it doesn't function here. Frankly, I absolutely love House of Games, but a little more comedic treatment might have even improved that masterpiece. One can like Mamet and like smiling as well.

In David Mamet's taciturn comedy of errors a simple Sicilian shoe-shiner is hired to take the prison rap for a mob hit man, in return for anything he desires after his release (all he wants is a boat). But the plan goes quietly haywire when his minder decides to treat him to a final weekend fling at Lake Tahoe, where the old man is mistaken for a mafia don from Chicago. Any other director might have played it for easy laughs, but even in such a whimsical mood Mamet is still a very careful, very deliberate filmmaker, and he approaches each scene with the same attention to nuance emphasized in every line of his trademark dialogue. It's a comedy of smiles more than belly laughs, summed up best by Shoe-shiner Don Ameche's childlike air of bewilderment and naïve trust in everyone around him (shades of Chance the gardener in Jerzy Kosinski's 'Being There'). Nothing seems to trouble him, because he knows a secret most people take for granted: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

A comedy by David Mamet - it seems like a contradiction in terms... This sparkling film bristles with life. There is absolutely nothing in common with other dialog-oriented films by writer-directors that quickly become talkathons. This film presents its "message" from the beginning and its pace doesn't let up until the end. It's funny all right - not explosive, rolling-on-the-floor humor but humor of a much gentler kind - and everything is wonderfully written and realized. If I had to use a word to describe it, "balletic" comes to mind. The timing and the movements are in perfect synchronization. What a delightful surprise!

Curtis Stotlar

While I am not a huge fan of David Mamet I liked most of the movies he directed that I saw and since he directed often one of my favourite actors, I knew that I had to see THINGS CHANGE.

Gino (Don Ameche) is an old Chicago shoe-shiner that one day is approached by mob boss Don Green for taking the blame for a murder committed by another gangster. Gino agrees on the condition that he can have a fishing boat with the money he'll receive after a three year sentence. While preparing for the confession Gino is approached by Jerry (Joe Mantegna), a gangster in trouble because he failed to execute orders properly, and they spend a week of thinking in lake Tahoe. At the casino, Gino is mistaken for a powerful mafia boss by a Sicilian who happened to be there and they are mistaken for vips. After the confession fails Gino risks his death but will be saved by Jerry who then joins him in his shoe-shine store.

The plot looked a bit confusing (and it took me long for understanding it) but the acting was good by all (including Mamet's frequent co-stars) and there were some funny moments. Not exactly a masterpiece but still a decent time passer if you are stuck at home.

An elderly man who makes money shining shoes has been summoned to a meeting with a mob boss. It seems that the elderly guy (Don Ameche) bears a close resemblance to a mobster being held for murder. So, they want the old guy to take the rap...and they, in turn, will pay him well for the time he spends in prison for the killing he actually didn't commit. Gino agrees to the arrangement...and as a way of rewarding him, one of the lower level mobsters, Jerry (Joe Montegna), takes him for a great weekend in Reno...after which Gino is supposed to turn himself in to the law for the murder.

When the pair arrive in Reno, they are mistaken for VERY big fish. Suddenly, the resort casino offers them the best room, the best service....anything they want. It's obvious they have mistaken the pair for some other folks...well-placed mobsters who must be treated with the best of care.

The day after their arrival, two messengers of a local mobster arrive. They want Gino and Jerry to accompany them for a meeting with their boss, Don Giuseppe. Despite Gino being a simple man, he and Giuseppe (Robert Prosky) hit it off very well...and soon Gino is asked to stay for a meeting with the boss' friends....who are all VERY high-ranking mobsters from across the country. Gino agrees...but Jerry is losing his mind at this point! He just wants to end their weekend and go home. What's next? See the film.

The best thing about this film is Don Ameche's gentle and understated performance. It's really lovely to watch...especially if you are a fan of classic Hollywood, as he was quite the matinee idol in the 1930s-40s. It also didn't hurt that the film was written by David Mamet AND, Shel Silverstein, of all people! Overall, a very nice slice of life film...one that is pleasant and sweet.

Gino (Don Ameche) is an elderly Chicago shoe-shine man, with a dream of owning a fishing boat in his native Sicily. He also resembles a Mob assassin who was identified by witnesses as the killer of a recently murdered man. Gino reluctantly agrees to impersonate the killer and go to prison for a few years, in return for enough money to fulfill his dream. Jerry (Joe Mantegna) is a disgraced low-level criminal assigned to look after Gino for a weekend, and deliver him to a courthouse the following Monday. Hoping to impress his charge - and boost his own ego - Jerry whisks the old man off to Lake Tahoe for some fun. For the next couple of days, however, fun and trouble are interchangeable.

"Things Change" is a change itself for David Mamet. His movies are usually driven by dialogue; indeed, a number of them, such as "Glengarry Glen Ross", were originally written for the stage. "Things Change" is more about situation and character, both of which are revealed more by sight than by word. As well, Mamet's well-known use of obscenities - usually unnecessary in movies but seeming quite natural in his scripts - is nearly unheard here. And finally, this is a comedy, with dramatic overtones. As one other reviewer wrote, a Mamet comedy is almost an oxymoron.

This effort reminded me of the attempt of another idiosyncratic director, David Lynch, to go in different direction with his excellent The Straight Story. While that change of pace was a success, Things Change is, regrettably, not.

The advantages to the movie are the actors and their performances. Ameche is perfect as the old shoe-shine man. Seemingly diffident, Gino has a definite personality; he appears simply to have had very little opportunity to reveal it. Humble he may be, but not quite meek.

Mantegna is equally well cast as his minder, a man who is submissive in the face of stronger, fiercer men, but boastful for those he thinks are smaller than he. Nonetheless, he is a kind man, who may have been somebody like Gino had been when young.

The cast is filled with Mamet 'regulars', such as Ricky Jay, J. J. Johnston and William H. Macy, and those connected with him, such as J. T. Walsh. They all do a fine job.

The problem here is the story. I've read that many consider Things Change to be a 'gentle comedy'. I found it to be closer to a gentle farce - and a farce that is gentle just doesn't work. Once in Tahoe, Gino and Jerry are tossed into situations of mistaken identities, wrong locations and awkward questions. There is even a scene of Mantegna sneaking out of a window which is reminiscent of the slamming doors and running cast-members of a traditional farce. But none of it is handled in the way it should be. Either the pace should have been frenetic (which would have been a mistake, I think) or the farcical element discarded all together for more subdued humour (which, admittedly, is also included.)

Various incidents are unbelievable, even in the context of comedy. Why would a small-time mafioso fly himself and an old man off to Tahoe for a weekend just to impress the latter when he is already in deep trouble with his superiors? Where did he get the money? (Earlier, we see him being given an empty pay-envelope for botching his previous assignment.)

I also found it hard to credit the manager of a prestigious hotel handing over an entire floor and granting unlimited credit to unknown guests on the sole recommendation of a limousine driver. And at one point, a Mafia boss does a favour for Gino which would have crossed and annoyed a fellow boss and must surely have ruined the latter's carefully laid plans. Despite the set-up for this favour, it is a trick that feels too neat.

Despite the performances, which are of the expected high calibre, "Things Change" is not very funny, not as charming as it would have liked to be, and a failed attempt at something different by a famed writer and director.

Most of us come from families who came from the old country with practically nothing. Naturally, our grandparents worked from dawn to dusk to survive in the new land and make a better life for the kids. It was the generations that followed that caught the American disease of wanting to become a "somebody" as a substitute for the integrity of the Old World that was left behind. The paradox of this film, the paradox of achieving "the American Dream", of "building this great nation" is that after all the generations of struggle for position, money, and importance, we wake up and realize that it's all empty, that simple integrity and friendship are all that mean anything, that our fore-fathers had that in the beginning.

It has been said that in order to save one's life one must loose it....

Ameche is too old. He was 80 at the time. What man would risk dying in prison, just for a boat? I just can't suspend my disbelief. Then there is the love interest, with the two dancers. Ameche was 80. They needed a younger actor, someone in their 50s or 60s.

In "Things Change" David Mamet applies his direct, unique directorial style to the classic "Being There." Each is similar thematically, and each leave the viewer with a sense of wonder and affection (for either the film or the characters), however Mamet is not quite as effective as Hal Ashby in that respect. Mamet uses his friends in many of the roles as in many of his movies, and they all fit perfectly. The cast is as strong as the writing and direction, which you know Mamet has filled with surprises. This is a movie that is entertaining and rewarding, a combination seen all too infrequently in modern films.

If you've ever seen a David Mamet play or film, you know that he writes heavy, disturbing, and often unwatchable stories. He also almost always uses William H. Macy, so even though this movie goes way back to 1988, you will see that familiar face (the blond chauffeur). Speaking for familiar faces, you'll also get to see Felicity Huffman's film debut (for a few minutes at the Wheel of Fortune). But my point is this is a heavy movie. You can sense the tone from the first ten minutes, and if you feel uncomfortable or don't like it, turn it off. I've learned my lesson over the years: Mamet stories never get any better.

The story of this relatively light Mamet drama concerns the power of the mafia. The mafia is looking for someone to take the rap for a murder, someone who looks exactly like the man who really did it. They approach Italian cobbler Don Ameche with a proposition: take the rap, go to jail for three years, and come out of it with a large sum of money. If he refuses, they'll kill him. So, he agrees, and he gets placed in custody of Joe Mantegna for the weekend before the trial. Joe takes pity on the old timer and decides to show him a good time at a resort at Lake Tahoe.

I'd really only recommend this for die-hard fans of either Don Ameche or David Mamet. I watched it because of Don's time as Star of the Week, otherwise I wouldn't have rented it. Be prepared for some heavy drama, and as always, have a comedy lined up for tomorrow night.

This movie is a work of art on many levels. We have seen the premise many times for example Un jardinero con suerte (1979) and El teatro de la vida (1997).

Only those films relied on dumb luck or just dumb. Whereas this film portrayed principle, friendship, and the person overcoming the situation without being so ignorant that he misses the point. Several times you want to close your eyes because you just know what is going to happen. And then it doesn't. One of my favorite scenes was the telling of the "Grasshopper and the ant" This is a microcosm of the movie.

The basic story is about a shoe shiner (Don Ameche) taking the place of a killer in exchange for his dream of a boat after three years of incarceration. With three days to go before the trial, the person (Joe Mantegna) assigned to watch him decides to give the shoe shiner one last fling. Starting with mistaken identity and complications snowballing from there.

Gino (Don Ameche) is a simple shoe shiner with a small store. A man has been murdered and there are two witnesses. The killer turns out to be a mobster and Gino's doppelganger. Mob boss Mr. Green gives Gino an offer he can't refuse. Gino wants a boat. In exchange, he is to take the fall and go to prison for three years. Low ranking mobster Jerry (Joe Mantegna) is ordered to guard and prepare him. Jerry decides to show him a good time but it gets out of hand.

The original deal makes little sense. I don't see 3 years for a murder and the boat thing seems non-specific. It's all a little unreal. I'm guessing that the movie is meant to be a little surreal and a little quirky. Gino is meant to be simple but it's hard for Ameche to play dumb. In the end, I really like this pairing. Their low key chemistry is really nice. The details of everything needs some more work but the most important aspect is the two leads. I love these two actors and that goes a long way.

This is a quiet, enjoyable film with Mantegna playing Mantegna, the nervy, edgy man who thinks he is smarter than everyone else but needs to go back to school for a few more lessons. He is saved by Ameche, a little man who plays a fool to get by in a dangerous world, never letting anyone know if it is an act or real. He lets the cat out of the bag in the bath house scene, when he opens his mouth and out comes this magnificent version of "Return to me" but in Italian.

The film has one problem once the pair arrive in Tahoe, Mantegna passing the gentle shoe shine man off as a Capo. It's quite funny to watch everyone bow and scrape in those scenes from the arrival at the airport until they settle into their suite, but after that Mamet has a problem. Where do he go from here? The ending is predictable, but any other would have chased patrons out of the theater in anger.

David Mamet's second written (actually co-written with of all people, comedic writer - Dr Hook anyone? - Shel Silverstein ) and directed feature was a distinct change of pace from his slick caper-esque debut "House of Games", a film I loved. Again he employs a cast and crew with whom he would work regularly down the years and it shows in this assured, darkly comedic mob-drama starring most prominently Joe Mantegna and old Hollywood veteran Don Ameche.

The plot is a simple one. We're in Chicago and Ameche is an old shoeshiner, apparently alone in the world whose initial misfortune, although things change, is to resemble a Mafia killer. The offer he's made, although it's one he can't really refuse, is to take the rap for his murdering double, in exchange for which he's promised a prison term of three years and when he comes out enough money to buy his dream, a fishing boat. Assigned as his minder is Mantegna, a low-ranking henchman looking to climb his way back up the hierarchy after botching a recent job. All he has to do is baby-sit the old man until his trial and make sure he gets his "confession" word perfect.

However, they both get a bit stir-crazy cooked up in their cheap out-of-the-way hotel and decide to hit the high-spots for the weekend, figuring Ameche deserves as much for what he's got coming to him. The two men start to bond even as they milk Ameche's perceived notoriety but things decidedly heat up when a gangleader's convention takes place in the same hotel. Everybody he meets seems to love Ameche, plus it helps that he's from old Sicily too but just how far will his unassuming innocent charm take him...

Filmed in Mamet's sleek, stylised manner and employing throughout his rhythmic, repetitive speech patterns, this was a wryly amusing episodic movie predicated entirely on the benign influence of Ameche's beatific Gino character. He's beautifully played by the thickly-accented Ameche, the definition of everyone's dotty old grandfather and is nicely counterpointed by Mantegna as his excitable chaperone who can't help but warm to him. The soundtrack by Alaric Jans subtly evokes "The Godfather" and there's capable support everywhere in the already familiar cast where you'll see faces like William H Macy with a bizarre bleached-blonde haircut, J T Walsh, Ricky Jay and others.

To sum up, this was a more relaxed, less intense but just as rewarding Mamet movie, one to which his admirers, like me, should readily take.

Just tell them old Gino sent you.