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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

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.

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.

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.

"Things Change" is the weakest of acclaimed playwright/screenwriter David Mamet's film directing efforts. It tells the story of an immigrant shoe-polisher (Don Amiche) who agrees to be framed for murder by the Chicago Mafia in exchange for fulfillment of his dreams once he's freed from prison. But before his arraignment he gets a three-day madcap weekend adventure at a mob-controlled Lake Tahoe casino, courtesy of an on-the-outs flunky played by Joe Mantegna. The two have a difficult relationship but form a friendship which is finally tested by film's end. It's nice to see Mantegna and other Mamet regulars (including Ricky Jay and William H. Macy) in a movie that's essentially a comedy, but they and their dialogue seem really awkward in such a silly film. Amiche fares better, and at times is the only saving grace for the film, which lacks the paranoia and psychological wrestling found in most of Mamet's films, yet is still too hard-edged and leisurely paced to get many laughs as a comedy. The late Shel Silverstein was a collaborator with Mamet on the script, which contains clever ideas but is weakly executed. The music by Alaric Jans is unremarkable; not nearly as good as the jazz-noir he contributed to House of Games or his orchestral themes for the Winslow Boy. In short, the film is an interesting comparison piece for other Mamet films, but falls well short of the high standard the others are able to maintain.