You'd never guess, from the weight of the thing, that this is one of Shakespeare's comedies -- unless maybe by the device of the woman-disguised-as-a-man and fooling her own husband. Further, the naturalistic acting (faltering delivery, sotto voce, peppered with pauses), the cut-aways to authentic Venice locales, and the drowning-out background noise and music do their damnedest to obscure the fact that it's Shakespeare at all. So scrupulous to avoid suspicions of anti-Semitism, it presents Shylock (Al Pacino, faintly echoing the inflections of the old-time Jewish character actor) as the righteously motivated hero of a revenge tragedy; and the tribunal scene, with the sweating, fainting, vomiting Antonio strapped to a chair for the extraction of the pound of flesh, is as torturous as any death-row countdown in an anti-capital-punishment screed. With Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes, and Lynn Collins; directed by Michael Radford. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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