Predicated on the observation that an old Sicilian shoeshine man looks pretty much the same as an old Sicilian mafia don, THINGS CHANGE finds comedy and pathos in a case of very mistaken identity. Italian-American acting legend Don Ameche plays Gino, a man with a simple life who is recruited by an underworld boss to take the rap for a murder. Jerry (Joe Mantegna) is assigned to sit on Gino until he goes to confess, and he feels compelled to offer the quiet old man one last good time--in Lake Tahoe, where everyone mistakes Gino for a mob big shot. Soon the pair are getting the royal treatment, while Gino's shoeshine-shop wisdom keeps everyone fooled into thinking he's a powerful man with a humble demeanor. Director David Mamet gets laughs the hard way, developing characters and setting up believably comic situations for them to interact in, even as he lets the tension regarding Gino's fate mount. He also indulges the taste for hoaxes that he explored more seriously in HOUSE OF GAMES and THE SPANISH PRISONER. Behind it all is Ameche, who plays every scene close to the vest and steals the show anyway.

Gino, an elderly, gracious shoeshiner who bears an uncanny resemblance to a mob kingpin, agrees to take a three-year jail rap for him in return for a fishing boat and retiring to the "old country." But his life is turned upside down when his "guard" takes him on a last weekend fling and he's recognized as a mob chieftain and given royal treatment. But, of course, things change.

The film was shot on location in Lake Tahoe and Chicago.

Excerpt: "Things change."--Gino (Don Ameche)

DVD Features:

Region 1 Encoding
Keep Case
Full Frame and Anamorphic Widescreen
Audio:
Mono - English, Spanish
Subtitles - English, Spanish
Additional Release Material:
Trailers
Text/Photo Galleries:
Production Notes
Talent Files
Interactive Features:
Menus
Scene Access

Don Ameche: American actor
Joe Mantegna: American Actor
J.J. Johnson: Actor, THINGS CHANGE (1998)
Robert Prosky: American Character Actor

David Mamet: American Playwright/Director

"...Characteristic [of Mamet] and oddball....[Mantegna is] brilliantly funny..."
Included in The New York Times "10 BEST FILMS OF 1988"
"...Soaring visuals..."
"...Full of delicately stepped pirouettes through the pleasure palaces of the criminal underworld..."
"...The is one of those 'little' movies where everything is perfectly scaled..."