Gino (Don Ameche), a simple Chicago shoe-shiner, is offered a considerable sum of money to take the fall for a murder committed by a Mafioso he resembles. Determined to one day buy a fishing boat, he accepts the offer. Jerry (Joe Mantegna), a low-level mob figure who has fallen out of favor, is assigned to watch Gino until his court date. He decides to show the older man a good time before he gets sent to prison and takes him to Lake Tahoe instead. Jerry passes his newfound acquaintance off as a powerful mob boss and, astonishingly, the ruse works. The more time they spend taking advantage of their newfound prestige, however, the more they stand to lose.
David Mamet has long had a fascination with crime and his second film can best be described as Being There crossed with Scorcese. Like Peter Sellers’ Chance the Gardener, Ameche’s Gino gets by because his naiveté is mistaken for genius by all around him. Mantegna gives some humanity to Jerry by making him more than just a moocher. The two leads are fun to watch and other Mamet regulars (magician Ricky Jay as a consigliore and a young bleach-blond William H. Macy as a chauffeur) make the most of their small parts.
What nearly kills this film is its lack of plausibility. Without giving too much away, these gangsters don’t act like gangsters – not even dumb ones. And yet the heaping of coincidence upon coincidence is essential to the plot. For that reason, Things Change works much better as a farce than a crime film. Taken in this vein, it’s equal parts entertaining and touching, though inescapably small.
7/10
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