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.

Maybe I'm a sucker being a Don Ameche fan, but, I completely enjoyed the flick. It was light, great entertainment. There was no message or hidden meanings, nothing that is going to be compared to Citizen Kane or The Godfather. It's fun seeing William H. Macy in an early role. It's fun seeing Joe Mantegna in a role he perfectly fits into. I had a smile on my face at the end of the movie. That is a winner in my book.No big twists in the movie, it pretty much turns out as you expect it to. But, if you don't have a great liking, if not a love, for Don Ameche's character by the end of the movie, then you probably hate Frank Capra movies, also.

A comedy by David Mamet - it seems like a contradiction in terms... This sparkling film bristles with life. There is absolutely nothing in common with other dialog-oriented films by writer-directors that quickly become talkathons. This film presents its "message" from the beginning and its pace doesn't let up until the end. It's funny all right - not explosive, rolling-on-the-floor humor but humor of a much gentler kind - and everything is wonderfully written and realized. If I had to use a word to describe it, "balletic" comes to mind. The timing and the movements are in perfect synchronization. What a delightful surprise!Curtis Stotlar

In David Mamet's taciturn comedy of errors a simple Sicilian shoe-shiner is hired to take the prison rap for a mob hit man, in return for anything he desires after his release (all he wants is a boat). But the plan goes quietly haywire when his minder decides to treat him to a final weekend fling at Lake Tahoe, where the old man is mistaken for a mafia don from Chicago. Any other director might have played it for easy laughs, but even in such a whimsical mood Mamet is still a very careful, very deliberate filmmaker, and he approaches each scene with the same attention to nuance emphasized in every line of his trademark dialogue. It's a comedy of smiles more than belly laughs, summed up best by Shoe-shiner Don Ameche's childlike air of bewilderment and naïve trust in everyone around him (shades of Chance the gardener in Jerzy Kosinski's 'Being There'). Nothing seems to trouble him, because he knows a secret most people take for granted: the more things change, the more they stay the same.