Watch The Merchant of Venice For Free

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I'm sorry Al. I mean, I am stoked that you got to do Will on the big screen, I really am. I am ecstatic that it was one of my favorites and monumentally depressed that labor of loves like this only get a limited screening and small box office reviews.Who wants to see "The Merchant of Venice" anyway? So sayeth the Millennial.Clearly a lot of people do. I mean, how many centuries has it been in production? Is that were they got the name for the sports car? Who knows.The fact is that it was brilliant. Not totally true to the source, but close enough where you're going to sit back and be in Elizabethan bliss.Especially since, for us historians, films depicted so beautifully, as this one was, just reinforces the fact that Shakespeare was the Joss Wheadon of his day.It may be high brow today, but so is Dumas.The fact is, a film like "The Merchant of Venice" if done right, should give you the sense of Elizabethan pulp. You should be able to sit back and understand just how popular he was with the masses of the day. it should be funny and beautiful and dramatic and this film captured all of that. Not as action packed as Hamlet, but just as entertaining.And that was what Shakespeare tried to do, entertain us.

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.

this film was truly amazing to watch, the costumes and scenery were first-class. Michael Radford has done a tremendous job, on a fairly constrained budget (as he said at the London Premiere). Costumes and general time period pieces were exquisite and Oscar nominations for these would seem in the running.The acting was simply superb. Al Pacino was (as ALWAYS) perfect. He captured the torture of emotions that run through Shylock impeccably and easily stole the spotlight whenever he was on screen. Jeremy Irons paved the way for great British acting in his earlier times, and now has done the same. Also Lynn Collins, a fairly recent newcomer was perfect as Portia. She was stunning to look at and managed to pull of the speeches with grace.Although i have all this praise, the film was definitely over-long and many scenes seemed to me like they could have done with a few edits or too. However, the atmosphere of Venice was amazing and it truly felt real in all the mannerisms of the actors.Ultimately a very successful and ambitious film, that leaves nothing to the imagination, as it is a very realistic approach to Shakespeare. Beautiful to look at and incredible actors too (especially for Pacino) make this a great film that i would watch again an recommend at the drop of a Venetian hat.

This is a beautifully made film, and Al Pachino as Shylock is simply magnificent. I have noticed that Pachino has been taking a number of roles in Shakespeare plays, one of the others that I have seen is where he plays Richard III in Looking for Richard. Being able to effectively play a Shakespearian character is quite a task and I must say that both Pachino and Irons do a magnificent job.The setting is period, meaning that we are in Venice in the 14th century. However Shakespeare's understanding of the Venetian government is quite limited. I note he refers to the Duke of Venice, however Venice did not have a royal family per se, but was rather a republic that was ruled by an elected official (the Doge). The movie though tends to follow through with the play, though I noted that with Othello they did have the ruler of Venice dressed as the Doge would have been dressed.I will not go into details regarding the plot as I believe that the plot is quite familiar anyway. However, it really has two interlinking plots, namely Bassiano's courting of Portia, and the feud between Shylock and Antonio over the payment of a debt. Shylock wants his pound of flesh after Antonio was left temporarily destitute and unable to pay his dues.This play is all about mercy, and contrasts Shylock's unmerciful and vengeful nature with the Venetians who, at the end of the play, show Shylock mercy. However it is clear from Shylock that this is pretty much a once off event, as if they wanted to demonstrate to Shylock that they are not hypocrites. I can't say whether they treated Shylock all that badly beforehand, though it is true that Jews in Venice were treated as second class citizens.This movie is beautifully made, and appears to try to recreate Venice of the 14th Century. I note that many of the characters, when wondering the streets, will wear masks, and while it was something that passed me by the last time I saw it, when I went to Venice I noticed that there were lots of masks for sale, and suspected that the wearing of a mask while out of your house was accepted fashion. However I am unsure whether that applies with the low cut tops that we see everywhere.Another interesting this that I discovered is that in the movie Antonio and Bassiano are apparently homosexual lovers. It is suggested that in the play it is implied by never stated outright (which you probably wouldn't do in 16th Century England anyway), though it is much more noticeable in the movie. However, innocent little me didn't seem to actually notice it.