SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Daria Trumper When I first read the book, I desired nothing more than to see the acts performed, preferably as I've imagined them being played out in my head whilst reading. This not being the first time it had happened, I've prepared myself for another disappointment of epic proportions. However, this particular movie adaptation was anything but. The cast is well selected. Some of the actors I have beheld for the first time, but most of them played their parts according to my taste. Jeremy Irons has never before failed to deliver, and I've yet to see him perform less than perfectly. Al Pacino's embodiment of Shylock was also stupendously extraordinary. Lynn Collins's portrayal of Portia (who happens to be my favourite character in the book) was, although not completely as I've imagined it, awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, nowadays not only do we lose some of the finest artists of our time, but there is so little space for them to display their full potential; in such a way one misfortune competes with another. I've never given much notice to directors, but this work of art cannot be simply attributed to the actors, or the story, or the impressions and expectations of the audience. Michael Redford completed this picture, he was the missing piece that allowed for this art form to be manifested in reality. And I thank him for it. No doubt my watchlist shall be littered with his movies from now on, at least until the day I see them all. The sole flaw of this film is that now, having seen it and read the book as well, I cannot decide who the villain is, and as someone who is rather fond of clear and logical limitations and yet aware that life could never be so simplistic, that bothers me immensely. I cannot condemn any of the characters. I've grown too fond of them all. Beware the feels this movie brings.

SnoopyStyle It's 1596 Venice. Jews face restrictions even in the liberal city state. They are forbidden to hold property. They charge usury which is something unChristian and are demonized for it. Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) asks 3000 ducats from melancholy Antonio (Jeremy Irons) to woo wealthy heiress Portia (Lynn Collins). Bassanio is able to get moneylender Shylock (Al Pacino) to make it an interest-free 3 month loan but Antonio must give a pound of flesh if he fails to repay the loan. There is animosity on both sides. After Antonio's ships are lost, Shylock goes to court seeking his pound of flesh.This is one of the more troubling Shakespearian plays to a modern audience. The villainous Shylock is the quintessential money-grubbing vengeful Jew that is the caricature Jew for every antisemite. There is no doubt that Al Pacino is brilliant and injects a humanity into a villain that is usually two-dimensional. In fact, it is questionable if Shylock is truly a villain in his hands. The comedy may not wear well especially as a modern play but Pacino turns it into something more compelling.

dallasryan Very good, solid film of Shakespeare's work. The directing is dynamic and the players in this film are well placed, therefore with all the interior shots that are going on, it still feels like there is a lot of space/room in the movie, when in actuality it's a lot of clustered interior shots ergo most of the actors probably feel like they are in a Cluster F99K most of the time. So the director did a great job at making it look like there wasn't much of a cluster. Excellent acting all the way down to the smallest of characters. I really enjoy watching Joseph Fiennes in these Shakespeare movies, I wish I saw more of him, he's a really good actor, but his forte is within the Shakespeare period. Plus Lynn Collins was terrific. I couldn't believe she was Dawn from True Blood and the wife of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in the 2009 X-Men Origins: Wolverine film. A Very good actress. And also Pacino did not disappoint. A real treat with The Merchant of Venice.

proteus6847 As an actor, Al Pacino comprehends a fairly narrow subset of humanity: thugs, mobsters, hustlers, operators, anyone conversant with the modern American street. He has little or no affinity for patricians, intellectuals, the cultivated, the well-spoken, or people from other times and other countries. This makes him a disastrous Shakespearean, as his Richard III so wincingly confirmed. Shylock might seem more promising, a resident of the ghetto with an earthier argot; and didn't Dusty do it not so long ago? But the 400 year-old idiom and a welter of other strangenesses stand between Pacino and the character, blocking empathy and simple understanding. He accordingly does what any actor in his situation would do. He withdraws into himself and gives a shy, subdued performance, hoping that muted incompetence will pass for restraint.Pacino spends much of the film in a state of apparent exhaustion, trudging from scene to scene with his eyelids half-open. His voice never rises above a gravelly murmur. With Jessica he shows neither sternness nor tenderness, only somnolence. His initial scene is impenetrable: why does this notorious usurer forgo interest in favor of a pound of worthless flesh? To appease the Christians with a "merry bond"? Or to tickle his vindictivenss with the mere possibility of killing Antonio? The first choice will work only if one cuts Shylock's earlier vow to "feed fat his ancient grudge" against Antonio if he ever gets the chance--a cut which this politically correct film predictably makes. The second choice is the one Shakespeare intended. Yet remarkably, Pacino plays neither, his droopy-eyed fatigue conveying no glimmer of hatred or hope for acceptance. At times he comes fleetingly to half-life, only to relapse into insomniac depletion. "Hath not a Jew eyes?" is gruff rather than furious or anguished; he is offhand rather than impassioned in the Jailer scene; and his demeanor at the trial is moody. We must assume that Shylock is motivated throughout by nothing more than weary resignation.Some critics have dubbed Pacino an accomplished verse-speaker. Since he has played only two other Shakespearean roles in a 40-year career overwhelmingly skewed towards contemporary semi-literates, this would be amazing if true. In fact, Pacino speaks terribly, his discomfort with the language manifest in his abashed muttering, and in a hesitant, halting, word-by-word delivery maintained from beginning to end. Could this be dialectal, the alien Jew negotiating a foreign tongue? No, because Pacino uses the same plodding diction with Jessica and Tubal. (Ignorance has a hard time masquerading as characterization). Phony Britishness causes him to pronounce "lord" as "lohrd;" when mingled with the strains of his native Bronx, it changes terminal-r words into earsores or rather ee-ah-saws. His mumbling articulation can have a truncating effect, as when "tourquoise" is lopped into "tourquoi" and "better the instruction" into "bet the instruction." The foreign language is Shakespeare, and Pacino is the hapless negotiator.Hollywood stars rarely distinguish themselves when they tackle the Bard, and Al Pacino is no exception. His whispery, tentative and amateurish Shylock is a monument to nothing but his own inexperience.