Film #9: Things Change
Reviewed on November 19, 2011
Things Change---but it would be great if some things stayed the same, so Don Ameche would still be with us
This evening we will be looking at Things Change. It stars the late great actors Don Ameche and Robert Prosky, and also Joe Mantegna. It was directed by David Mamet. Let me repeat that for its awesomeness quotient. IT WAS DIRECTED BY DAVID MAMET!!! Also, Mamet co wrote it with Shel Silverstein....yes, that Shel Silverstein.... is your mind blown yet?This film has appearances by the fantastic stable of character actors of Mamet and Paul Thomas Anderson; Felicity Huffman(in her first film role), a blonde William H Macy, Ricky Jay, the late JT Walsh (a 1988 project favorite), Jonathan Katz,etc.
The Plot:
We open on a nostalgic tableau, complete with mandolin music in the background.The mood is set for a movie that is clearly going to be about "life is no longer what it was". We are taken to a present Italian neighborhood in Chicago and into a shoe repair shop where we find Gino(Ameche) shining shoes behind a stereotypical turn of the century(19th to 20th) Italian mustache. Gino is taken to meet the mafia boss of Chicago, where he is asked if he will take the murder rap for one of their hit-men, with who he bears a resemblance. Gino is promised anything he wants in order to serve jail time, so he asks for a boat. At first, he turns them down, but changes his mind after getting the feeling that they are not going let him walk out of their office.
Jerry(Mantegna), a mafia member on probation, is assigned to watch Gino over the weekend until the arrest on Monday. Instead of sitting around a hotel room all weekend, Jerry decides to take Gino on one last fling in Lake Tahoe. In Lake Tahoe, Gino is constantly mistaken as the head of a major organized crime family and is given top class treatment, which includes free gambling money, show tickets, and a palace for a hotel room. It doesn't help matters that Jerry never denies the rumor to anyone. Things come to a head when the local mafia don Joseph Vincent(Robert Prosky) invites Gino over to his home to clear up his suspicions that Gino is not for real. Fate steps in and the two men become close friends, as neither one seems to be very happy in the modern world.
Coincidentally, this also happens to be the weekend of the national Mafia meeting at Vincent's house and Gino/Jerry have to find a way to escape. Jerry continues to remind Gino throughout the film that the boss, Mr Green, is going to kill him no matter what he promised, and Gino should get out fast. I will not spoil the end for you, except to say that as the film states....things change.
The Review:
I love David Mamet! I love Shel Silverstein. I must have burned through the copy of The Giving Tree a thousand times as a kid in my dentist's waiting room! I love Don Ameche. We listen to episodes of The Bickersons in our class! That being said, I also love this film! The plot is never dull, the dialog is witty, and the philosophy that ties life and shoe shining are endless. Ameche is so expressive in all of his work. Has there ever been an actor who could so say so much with a wrinkled brow and a twinkly eye? His accent is a little thick, Chico Marx thick, but it wasn't too much of a distraction. He says great lines like "I can no go back to Chicago, I got no shoes". Throughout the film he becomes an Italian Yoda, dispensing old world advice to a younger generation hanging on his every word. A great example can be found when he is in the pool with some girls, telling them his own version of the Grasshopper and the Ants. Ameche's masterful use of expression, allows his Gino to remain mostly silent. The people around him tend to treat him like he is clueless, but his face conveys a man who is working overtime to save his life and keep himself out of jail. Ameche's Gino observes and finds the angles while Jerry panics.
There is another terrific scene between Ameche and Robert Prosky on the beach. They are sitting in the sand with their shoes off, talking about their lives and their regrets, like two lost soulmates. They might as well have been having a conversation about the young actors that were coming up the pipe and how Hollywood was changing. Two vibrant old men in the twilight of their career, clinging to each other. Speaking of illuminating, Mantegna does an equally great job playing a mafioso with a soul. He allows his character to move from edge and anger into a man who feels a sad sympathy for the fate that awaits Gino. The climax scene between Mantegna and Ameche is a heart breaking performance by two powerhouses.
Mamet fills his fast paced world of organized crime with an amazing ensemble of actor's actors and meaningful language. It is always a pleasure to see JT Walsh, even if he only had two scenes.Come see William H Macy as a blonde jumpy mafia driver and Felicity Huffman as a fortune spinner girl. The talent that Mamet brings to his pictures astounds me. I was also extremely pleased to see the line ' The guy behind the guy,behind the guy, behind the guy" As a Swingers fan I got goose bumps in learning that Jon Favreau referenced Things Change in the Las Vegas casino scene (Vegas!!!).
The problem I had with this film, was the "Mafia speak". It was really distracting to my enjoyment of the film everytime a Mafia member would appear and say things like " I must remind you about that thing of which you did" "I cannot speak in a contraction,you will now pay to me some money, so that I may go to get some lessons on contractions" The last part is made up, but you get the idea. To be fair, in a post Goodfellas and Sopranos world, the table has been reset. The mafia members in this film seem to be stuck in the old rhetoric of mobsters in cartoons. I do find it amusing that Mantegna would turn this type of character into a spoof of "mafia speak" in his work as Fat Tony on the Simpsons.
Despite the speech patterns, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and would watch it again. Ameche is always one step ahead of the game, and the conclusion will leave you a little saddened and a little relieved. 1988 was also the same year that David Mamet's Tony winning "Speed the Plow" opened on Broadway with Mantegna and Madonna. One wonders if his critique of Hollywood found in that masterful production was based on his experiences in making "Things Change". Perhaps this film serves as a reminder that life in 1988 was getting too fast, and we had forgotten as a nation what it meant to just sit on a beach with our shoes off and breathe.
8 out of 10 stars
Rated 1988-PG; N, L
Here is what Roger Ebert said about Things Change in 1988
This evening we will be looking at Things Change. It stars the late great actors Don Ameche and Robert Prosky, and also Joe Mantegna. It was directed by David Mamet. Let me repeat that for its awesomeness quotient. IT WAS DIRECTED BY DAVID MAMET!!! Also, Mamet co wrote it with Shel Silverstein....yes, that Shel Silverstein.... is your mind blown yet?This film has appearances by the fantastic stable of character actors of Mamet and Paul Thomas Anderson; Felicity Huffman(in her first film role), a blonde William H Macy, Ricky Jay, the late JT Walsh (a 1988 project favorite), Jonathan Katz,etc.
The Plot:
We open on a nostalgic tableau, complete with mandolin music in the background.The mood is set for a movie that is clearly going to be about "life is no longer what it was". We are taken to a present Italian neighborhood in Chicago and into a shoe repair shop where we find Gino(Ameche) shining shoes behind a stereotypical turn of the century(19th to 20th) Italian mustache. Gino is taken to meet the mafia boss of Chicago, where he is asked if he will take the murder rap for one of their hit-men, with who he bears a resemblance. Gino is promised anything he wants in order to serve jail time, so he asks for a boat. At first, he turns them down, but changes his mind after getting the feeling that they are not going let him walk out of their office.
Jerry(Mantegna), a mafia member on probation, is assigned to watch Gino over the weekend until the arrest on Monday. Instead of sitting around a hotel room all weekend, Jerry decides to take Gino on one last fling in Lake Tahoe. In Lake Tahoe, Gino is constantly mistaken as the head of a major organized crime family and is given top class treatment, which includes free gambling money, show tickets, and a palace for a hotel room. It doesn't help matters that Jerry never denies the rumor to anyone. Things come to a head when the local mafia don Joseph Vincent(Robert Prosky) invites Gino over to his home to clear up his suspicions that Gino is not for real. Fate steps in and the two men become close friends, as neither one seems to be very happy in the modern world.
Coincidentally, this also happens to be the weekend of the national Mafia meeting at Vincent's house and Gino/Jerry have to find a way to escape. Jerry continues to remind Gino throughout the film that the boss, Mr Green, is going to kill him no matter what he promised, and Gino should get out fast. I will not spoil the end for you, except to say that as the film states....things change.
The Review:
I love David Mamet! I love Shel Silverstein. I must have burned through the copy of The Giving Tree a thousand times as a kid in my dentist's waiting room! I love Don Ameche. We listen to episodes of The Bickersons in our class! That being said, I also love this film! The plot is never dull, the dialog is witty, and the philosophy that ties life and shoe shining are endless. Ameche is so expressive in all of his work. Has there ever been an actor who could so say so much with a wrinkled brow and a twinkly eye? His accent is a little thick, Chico Marx thick, but it wasn't too much of a distraction. He says great lines like "I can no go back to Chicago, I got no shoes". Throughout the film he becomes an Italian Yoda, dispensing old world advice to a younger generation hanging on his every word. A great example can be found when he is in the pool with some girls, telling them his own version of the Grasshopper and the Ants. Ameche's masterful use of expression, allows his Gino to remain mostly silent. The people around him tend to treat him like he is clueless, but his face conveys a man who is working overtime to save his life and keep himself out of jail. Ameche's Gino observes and finds the angles while Jerry panics.
There is another terrific scene between Ameche and Robert Prosky on the beach. They are sitting in the sand with their shoes off, talking about their lives and their regrets, like two lost soulmates. They might as well have been having a conversation about the young actors that were coming up the pipe and how Hollywood was changing. Two vibrant old men in the twilight of their career, clinging to each other. Speaking of illuminating, Mantegna does an equally great job playing a mafioso with a soul. He allows his character to move from edge and anger into a man who feels a sad sympathy for the fate that awaits Gino. The climax scene between Mantegna and Ameche is a heart breaking performance by two powerhouses.
Mamet fills his fast paced world of organized crime with an amazing ensemble of actor's actors and meaningful language. It is always a pleasure to see JT Walsh, even if he only had two scenes.Come see William H Macy as a blonde jumpy mafia driver and Felicity Huffman as a fortune spinner girl. The talent that Mamet brings to his pictures astounds me. I was also extremely pleased to see the line ' The guy behind the guy,behind the guy, behind the guy" As a Swingers fan I got goose bumps in learning that Jon Favreau referenced Things Change in the Las Vegas casino scene (Vegas!!!).
The problem I had with this film, was the "Mafia speak". It was really distracting to my enjoyment of the film everytime a Mafia member would appear and say things like " I must remind you about that thing of which you did" "I cannot speak in a contraction,you will now pay to me some money, so that I may go to get some lessons on contractions" The last part is made up, but you get the idea. To be fair, in a post Goodfellas and Sopranos world, the table has been reset. The mafia members in this film seem to be stuck in the old rhetoric of mobsters in cartoons. I do find it amusing that Mantegna would turn this type of character into a spoof of "mafia speak" in his work as Fat Tony on the Simpsons.
Despite the speech patterns, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and would watch it again. Ameche is always one step ahead of the game, and the conclusion will leave you a little saddened and a little relieved. 1988 was also the same year that David Mamet's Tony winning "Speed the Plow" opened on Broadway with Mantegna and Madonna. One wonders if his critique of Hollywood found in that masterful production was based on his experiences in making "Things Change". Perhaps this film serves as a reminder that life in 1988 was getting too fast, and we had forgotten as a nation what it meant to just sit on a beach with our shoes off and breathe.
8 out of 10 stars
Rated 1988-PG; N, L
Here is what Roger Ebert said about Things Change in 1988