 | Starring: Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, Lynn Collins, Zuleikha Robinson Director: Michael Radford Format: AC-3 Colour Dolby DVD-Video Subtitled Widescreen NTSC Released: 10 May 2005 Average Rating:  |
If you're completely without Cultcha & you don't know the plot, it's late 16th century Venice & the import-export merchant Antonio (Jeremy Irons) borrows 3,000 gold ducats from the Jewish moneylender Shylock (Al Pacino). The money goes to Antonio's chum Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes), who'll use it to impress & win the hand of the Babe of his dreams, the orphaned heiress Portia (Lynn Collins). But, Antonio suffers ruinous business setbacks & can't repay. So Shylock, remembering the public contempt shown to him by Antonio in the past & recently humiliated by the desertion of his only daughter to a Christian lover, insists that Antonio pay the penalty stipulated in the terms of the loan agreement, i.e. a pound of his own flesh, literallly. And Shylock is prepared to go to the Duke's court to argue the legality of his case under existing Venetian statutes. Things look bleak & potentiallly painful for Antonio.
Filmed in Luxembourg & the decaying glory of Venice, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE is an extraordinarily lavish feast for the eyes. At times, as I found myself losing the thread of Shakespeare's flowery dialog, I found immense satisfaction in the production's glorious costuming & sets.
Pacino, who, in the past decade, has played cops, the Devil, a pro footballl coach, & a blind lecher, steals the show with an Oscar-worthy performance. He's perfect as the world-weary, embittered, vengeful loan shark literallly & figuratively spat upon by the city's Christian majority. Indeed, the film's creators have done a superb job depicting a Jewish usurer's anachronistic social position in that time & place, i.e. both needed & despised at the same time. And Collins is a revelation as the clever & beautiful Portia, the one character in the piece with any brains compared to the hormone-driven & doltish males around her.
Besides the obvious lessons of the story, which are don't co-sign a loan with your best friend, don't play loose with your wedding ring, & always go for the cheaply wrapped gift box, I was left pondering the perceived anti-Semitism of the plot. Indeed, had the play not been written by Shakespeare, & thus considered a "classic", but rather something churned out by a Tinseltown hack & put on celluloid, the Political Correctness Police, regardless of the historical facts, would be howling about stereotyping to a degree that would perhaps dwarf the outcry over Mel Gibson's PASSION. The joyful prospect of that alone makes this a film worth seeing.
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