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The Merchant of Venice Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: R (for some nudity) Theater release: January 01, 2009 by Sony Pictures Limited release: December 29, 2004 Directed by: Michael Radford Runtime: 2 hours 18 minutes Cast: Al Pacino (Shylock), Jeremy Irons (Antonio), Joseph Fiennes (Bassanio), Lynn Collins (Portia) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Director Michael Radford's The Merchant of Venice is a gift. Since the Holocaust, to present this brilliant, challenging Shakespeare play about Jew-hating Christians and hateful Jewish caricatures is to invoke controversy, inviting accusations of aiding and abetting gross anti-Semitism. Just ask the artistic director of your local Shakespeare festival.

But to avoid the play simply because it makes us uncomfortable would be a shame. The Merchant of Venice offers a complex and confounding window not only into our proclivity to mix racism and religion, but also into love and greed, mercy and justice, the contradictions of the human heart. Radford and his cast have created a Merchant for our day, grounded in the sensibilities of Shakespeare's.

The first image we see, center-screen, is a cross, mounted at the stern of a boat that carries a Jew-hating cleric, haranguing listeners with Old Testament Scriptures calling for death to usurers. In 1594, intolerance of Jews was a fact of life, and money-lending (at interest) violated the "Christian" law. While sophisticated Venetians turned a blind eye, "religious fanatics" used these laws to oppress Jews who, confined to ghettos by night and forbidden property ownership, resorted to money-lending as a means of survival.

Al Pacino, as Shylock, turns in his best ever peformance (with all due respect to Michael Corleone)

One Jew, marked by a red cap as inescapably as his descendants would be by yellow stars, is taunted by a mob and thrown from a bridge. Another, Shylock, calls out to a passerby in what seems a plea for compassion. Antonio turns and spits on him. Clearly this production won't be soft-pedalling the anti-Semitism of its characters.

We're five minutes into the film before hearing the first line of Shakespeare's text. By the time Antonio finally utters the intriguing, portentous, inexplicable (and ultimately unexplained) words, "In sooth I know not why I am so sad," I couldn't help but wonder if his sorrow might be that of a soul divided, if his hatred toward Shylock might not have begun to leaven the whole loaf.

The puzzle of Antonio is the play's great conundrum and challenge. Loathing the gross racism of Saliano and Salarino, we comfort ourselves that we are not like them. But Antonio isn't like them either. He's greatly respected for his wealth and success (he is the merchant of the title), but he is also a man of honor and reputation, who would sacrifice himself for a friend—quite literally, should occasion demand. We would say he is a man of integrity, but for the terrible flaw we cannot integrate. Jeremy Irons' nuanced, insightful and carefully balanced characterization goes further, subtly suggesting that Antonio's grief may also have roots in a "love that dare not speak its name": a man of status and conscience, he can give no expression to an affection he feels for Bassanio beyond mere comradeship.

Lynn Collins is stunning in the role of Portia

It's a good thing Irons' Antonio is so strong, so fascinating: there's always the risk that Shylock will steal the show, and here Al Pacino offers what may be the performance of a lifetime (with all due respect to Michael Corleone).

For folks whose memories don't go back enough decades, who think of Al Pacino as a good but limited actor who mostly sticks to a pretty decent Al Pacino imitation—crooks and the occasional cop—this film ought to be a revelation. Pacino reminds us that he is not just good but great, a performer of true genius who can dominate the screen, or an entire film. Forgetting his Looking for Richard, we don't expect American screen actors to fulfill the demands of Shakespearean text, yet every image and metaphor is alive, every intention both precise and visceral. He is up to every demand of the script: one line he breaks your heart, the next he turns your stomach.

Pacino shapes the role masterfully, completely establishing our empathy for an isolated man of feeling and principle (Antonio's mirror image) before launching himself headlong into the character's sickening descent into hatred, avarice and revenge. The actor not only rises to the role's extremes of villainous melodrama, he fills them, rendering them both theatrical and believable. Libby Appel once said there's no such thing as over-acting: there's true acting and there's false acting, that's all, however large or small. This acting is true, and you won't see better.

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