Welcome back-to-Movie Recap. Today I'm gonna show-you a 2014 magic realism comedy-drama
film called, The Cobbler. Spoiler's ahead. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the video.
The movie opens to a flashback, somewhere in the Lower East Side of New York City in 1903.
A group of older Jewish men are gathered in the shop of the town's cobbler, Pinchas Simkin.
In hushed tones, the men are discussing the current situation around the community.
The men are worried about the recent spate of local business closures in the neighborhood.
They blame these problems on Gergerman. Gergerman, according to the men, has been
threatening their businesses and harassing their families by driving up the rent in the community.
Pinchas attempts to appease his neighbors by offering compassion.
He encourages the men to perhaps try to see things from Gergerman's perspective,
to walk in his shoes. The men surprisingly agree to his suggestion and promptly hand
him a pair of Gergerman's shoes. Pinchas reluctantly accepts their gesture for help
and gets to work on Gergerman's shoes with his special stitching machine.
While Pinchas meticulously adds stitches to the soles of Gergerman's shoes,
he calls in his young son, Herschel, to join him. Herschel exclaims amazement at the sight
of his father's magnificent stitching machine. Pinchas smiles at his son and asks him to sit.
Pinchas starts telling his son the tale of the vagrant and his grandfather.
He explains that the stitching machine is a special gift the vagrant left his
grandfather in return for his kindness. Even so, Pinchas cautions Herschel that
their special stitching machine must only be used during special situations.
In the present day, Pinchas's great grandson Max has inherited the cobbler shop. The business has
been passed down through many generations of the Simkin family. Max, however, expresses
discontentment of his simple life to his neighbor Jimmy who operates the barbershop next door.
One day, a young woman enters Max's shop and introduces herself as Carmen Herrera.
Carmen works for the city's community center and asks Max to sign her petition to prevent
corporate developers from tearing down large portions of their neighborhood to make way for
huge complex buildings. She explains to Max how overdevelopment negatively impacts the community.
Max initially refuses Carmen's proposal, suggesting he might want to sell out his shop
if the developers offered him money. Carmen persuades Max to reconsider by giving him a
different perspective. She points to the community right outside the shop's doors.
She tells Max about how the city is more than just a collection of buildings, instead, it is a living
community and it lives in every brick that builds the city. With her charm and moving explanation,
Carmen successfully convinces Max to add his signature to their community conservation efforts.
In the evenings, Max goes home to his ailing mother Sarah.
The two live a solitary life together, keeping each other company.
They share commiseration after Max's father left them many years prior. However, recently, Sarah's
health has been rapidly declining as she begins to lose some of her memory. She sometimes forgets
that her husband Abraham left them many years ago, and constantly asks Max to call his father.
When Max's stitching machine unexpectedly breaks down while he is working on a local thug named
Leon Ludlow's shoes, he resorts to using his great grandfather's special stitching machine.
Jimmy walks in on Max while he painstakingly works on the ancient machine.
Jimmy expresses disbelief seeing Max using the old stitching machine, but he leaves him to it anyway.
Trying to pass the time while waiting for Leon to pick up his shoes, Max puts them on for size. He
freaks out when he discovers that he has magically turned into Leon after putting on his shoes.
Upon further investigation, Max discovers that using the special stitching machine on
strangers' shoes allows him to transform into them when he wears the shoes.
In the following days, Max explores this newfound magical ability of taking peoples' shoes and
living as someone else. He ventures to Chinatown as a Chinese man one day to explore the mysterious
part of town. Next, he goes to a restaurant as another man and orders an expensive meal.
He subsequently transforms back to his regular self before leaving to avoid paying the bill.
He also takes another man's shoes from the street to be
able to transform into him and take his expensive car out for a drive.
One day, Max's attractive neighbor Taryn takes her boyfriend Emiliano's shoes to Max for repair.
Max takes advantage of the situation and visits Taryn while disguised as Emiliano in the couple's
shared apartment. When Max finds Taryn in the shower, she asks him to join her thinking she
is talking to her boyfriend. Max eagerly starts to take off his clothes but stops
abruptly when he realizes that once he takes off his shoes, he will no longer be Emiliano.
After having fun with his magical ability, Max finally decides to put it to good use
and make his mother happy. For one night, he transforms into his father,
Abraham, using shoes that once belonged to him. Disguised as Abraham, he reunites with Sarah.
They share a special dinner together. Sarah finds happiness and contentment believing
Abraham has finally returned to her. They share a meal and dance together one last time.
Sadly, the next morning, Max discovers that Sarah has peacefully passed away in her
sleep. Max and his family sit Shiva, the traditional Jewish ritual for the dead,
for the week. Max's family urges him to get his mother a nice headstone to commemorate her memory.
The next day, Max devises a plan to earn the needed money to buy his mother a fine headstone.
He plans to rob Leon and steal his collection of expensive watches.
Max prepares to venture outside with a bag full of magical shoes.
He intends to follow Leon home to steal the watches and sell them for cash.
Disguised as Leon, Max finds Leon's girlfriend, Macy, in their apartment. Macy, thinking she's
talking to Leon, confronts him about his violent behavior and tells him she's finally leaving him
for good. After she storms out of the apartment, Max rummages through Leon's place looking for
the watches. However, what he finds is a cache of guns and other weapons, instead.
Shortly thereafter, the real Leon returns to his apartment.
The real Leon tries to beat up Max when he finds him intruding in his apartment. Luckily,
Max was able to take a taser from Leon's weapons and has managed to subdue the real Leon with it.
Max takes the real Leon hostage by using various fake identities through his collection of magical
shoes. Just when Max is about to leave with Leon's collection of valuable watches, he runs
into Leon's gang of thugs. Instead of leaving, Max decides to join the gang as they attend their
businesses for the night, still disguised as Leon, to earn more money for his mother's headstone.
The gang's first stop is a stingy garage where they are holding a man captive for
stealing from them. Instead of killing the man, Max orders Leon's thugs to let the offender go.
Although confused about the orders, Leon's thugs follow anyway.
Next, the thugs visit the home of a slumlord named Elaine Greenawalt.
She hands Max, still disguised as Leon, a large amount of cash and orders him to take out the
trash. Max has no idea what Elaine means by taking out the trash but takes the money all the same.
Now in possession of both Leon's expensive watches and Elaine's cash, Max is ready to return home.
But first, he goes back to Leon's apartment to set him free from being tied up. His plan backfires
when he arrives to find the real Leon has escaped from his restraints. The two fight it out and Max
ends up accidentally killing Leon by stabbing him with the heel of his red stiletto on the throat.
Overcome with guilt about accidentally killing Leon,
Max turns himself into the police the next day. The police doubt Max's wild story,
but they still agree to accompany him back to Leon's apartment to verify his report.
When they arrive at the apartment in question, Leon's body is gone, and the crime scene has
been cleaned. The police reject Max's account of the events and redact his police report.
Feeling confused, Max goes back to his shop. To his surprise,
he finds his bag full of magical shoes, Leon's watches, and Elaine's cash neatly
arranged on his work bench. In his confusion, Max attempts to run off and set things right.
On his way out of his shop, Max is confronted by his neighbor Jimmy. Jimmy expresses his
concern over Max's recent erratic behavior. They get into a heated argument after Jimmy
reveals to Max that he has seen the same thing happen before with Abraham.
He further explains that Abraham has left Max and Sarah because he got into serious trouble
and was forced to live his life as a recluse to save his family.
Before Max can harbor more ill feelings towards his friend, he walks away.
Instead, he takes the day to clean up the mess he left with Leon.
He goes to see Elaine and tries to return her money saying Leon is unable to fulfill the task.
However, Elaine sternly tells Max that it is unacceptable, and the job must be done.
Max eventually figures out what Elaine means when she said to take out the trash. It is Elaine's
evil plan to drive out the elderly man from his home through Leon. With Carmen's help, Max devises
a counter ruse to expose Elaine's illegal plan and finally drive her out of the city.
Through an elaborate scheme, Max tricks Elaine into giving him a large sum of
money while also letting the elderly Mr Solomon keep his home in the city.
Again using a slew of magical shoes, Max disguises himself as Mr Solomon to get Elaine to pay up USD
100,000 in exchange for him moving to Chicago. Meanwhile the real Mr Solomon is simply taking
a trip to visit his daughter for safety while Max continues his expos on Elaine.
The next day, when Elaine finds out Mr Solomon did not in fact move
out of the building, she goes up to confront him in his apartment.
When the old man refuses to leave, Elaine threatens to kill him and his daughter.
Unknown to Elaine, there is a hidden TV News crew in the apartment.
They ambush her with their recording of her threats to Mr Solomon. Elaine
is subsequently arrested, and Max successfully frees the community from the wicked slumlord.
There is only one final thing left for Max to make right.
He takes Leon's watches and gives them over to his ex-girlfriend,
Macy. Disguised as Leon, Max apologizes to Macy and tells her she deserves better.
As he leaves Macy's apartment, Max is abducted by a group of thugs mistaking him for Leon.
In a stroke of luck, when the thugs are about to drive off with Max held hostage,
when their car is struck on the road. All the gang members in the car die and only Max survives.
When Max finally comes to after the accident, he wakes up inside Jimmy's barber shop. Jimmy
casually offers him some water and a pickle, stating that pickles help his body recover after
transitioning from one body to another. Confused, Max asks Jimmy how he knew his magical ability.
In lieu of an explanation, Jimmy simply takes off his shoes to reveal that he was Abraham
the whole time. Both excited and angry, Max finally hugs his father in reconciliation.
The movie ends with Abraham finally explaining Max's birthright, the protector of soles.
Abraham reveals to Max that their family has been protecting the community for
over four generations through the magical stitching machine.
And now that Max is finally ready to take over their family's responsibility,
Abraham takes him to see their family's collection of shoes that once belonged to important people.