A solid, straight-forward adaptation. A few thoughts when watching. Why is Shakespeare the only guy whose work is allowed to be adapted without the language changed? In their day, Christopher Marlowe was the Pepsi to Shakespeare’s Coke. How bout one of his plays? Or one of the hundreds of dude’s from days of yore that I’ve never heard of? I’m sure SOME of them are good! Another thought — Shylock really gets fucked here. Couldn’t they’ve let him just go with the original $3000 he lent out?!!? I mean — what exactly are we rooting for, here? The Merchant bascially weasles out of an ironclad agreement on a dopey (and anti-Semetic) technicality, and doesn’t have the decency to at least give back the original dough he owes? Then, five minutes later, The Merchant’s little boy toy (and the boy toy’s little boy toy) give away their rings after promising their wives they would never do so. So — not only do these assholes welch on a bet, they lie to their wives!!! These are heroes?!? Fuck them! Stokely Carmichael woulda been right there with Shylock, stickin’ that dagger in Jeremy Irons’ lily-white ass! As far as Al Pacino is concerned, his performance is riveting — but how an old chazzer from Brooklyn-by-way-of-Minsk got to Venice, I’d be curious to hear. (Lastly, good to see Garreth from ‘The Office’ in another role. . .but it is kinda the same character!) (Lastly lastly, this is the first good movie to come out of Radford since “1984” in 1984.)
If Marlowe’s your thing there’s the very gay Derek Jarman film of “Edward II.” I havent’ seen it since it came out, but I think I liked it. Annie Lennox sort of wanders into one scene wearing a pair of men’s pajamas.