Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageThings Change (1988)
Director: David Mamet
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Mamet's second film is not intellectually fast, nasty, and dazzling like House of Games, but more like a leisurely variant on The Last Detail (and indeed, some Preston Sturges and Capra capers). It chronicles a masquerade whereby an insignificant shoeshine man, Gino (Ameche), is paid to become a fall guy for the Mob. His boastful minder Jerry (Mantegna), assigned to keep Gino on ice until his reluctant court confession, takes pity on him and resolves to give him an outing at the Lake Tahoe gambling resort. 'They always like you when you're someone else' is Jerry's one observation in life, and he is soon hoist by it, floundering in the wake of the folk-wisdom-spouting oldster as he finds himself at the high table with the Dons. It's a film of enormous charm and beguiling sentimentality, and it's played to the hilt by Ameche and Mantegna, the veteran blithely dignified, his captor sweatily alive to every danger, and right to fear the worst. Together, they cast quite a spell.Author: BC
Cast & crew
Director: David Mamet
Producer: Michael Hausman
Cast: Don Ameche, Joe Mantegna, Robert Prosky, JJ Johnston, Ricky Jay, Mike Nussbaum, Jack Wallace full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 100 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now