It was Shakespeare who stated that true friendship among men is sort of a utopia. That's why movies about that kind of bond are particularly moving. This David Mamet tale is certainly no exception.
An old shoeshine boy is asked to expend three years in prison as the replacement of a look-alike criminal who has committed a murder; in exchange, he would gain a huge amount of money per year for the three years and his life's dream, a fishing boat. This simple premise hints already at the somewhat fairy-tale quality of the unlikely situation. That state of mind is what characterizes primarily Don Ameche as the wide-eyed hero, a performance with an undeniable magic resourcefulness. His shoeshine man befriends the Mafia dons, yet also becomes friends with the bottom henchman of Joe Mantegna's, a dishwasher who is picked for taking proper care of the substitute while getting him to court. They both are nobodies and basically good persons, and so their relationship emerges all the more veritable due to it. However, Mamet, writer and director, is not concerned with realism as we know it, but with the possibilities in the friendly relations and their sometimes unpredictable consequences.
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