Member review

The Merchant of Venice was one Shakespeare's finest plays and this is now being shown in a fantastic film version which abides by Shakespeare’s plot and the techniques which he used when he was making his plays. The overall performance was appealing and one that used interesting and clever techniques. The plot was constantly intertwining with stories within the film. This kept the viewers attention because they were starting to get confused but it also kept them focused on the film. This enabled me to connect with many characters and the most of these was Shylock, played by Al Pacino. His character changed throughout the play. Michael Radford purposely makes the viewers feel sorry for Shylock because he starts the play as a victim and is being hurt just because he is a Jew. He then changes into more of a vicious villain who is blood thirsty and didn't know when to stop. The film also intertwines within different stories with the relationships between the characters and the 'three caskets' scenes. I could see the purpose of what Michael Radford was trying to achieve and how he used the prejudice of Shylock to show that you should take what you deserve instead of wanting more. The reason why that I decided not to give the film a higher rating was becuase I felt that it was difficult to understand and the plot was hard to grasp. The use of old English within the play too also made me a bit confused but overrall I think it is a good film and very interesting to watch.