The Merchant of Venice (2004)
Directed by Michael Radford
Venice, 1596. Bassanio begs his friend Antonio, a prosperous merchant, to lend him a large sum of money so that he can woo Portia, a very wealthy heiress; but Antonio has invested his fortune abroad, so they turn to Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, and ask him for a loan.
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What critics compared The Merchant of Venice to
When Walter starts to read it, he's struck by childhood events shared with Fingerling, and when Fingerling runs into the Suicide Blonde (Lynn Collins, "The Merchant of Venice"), haunted into madness by the number 23, Sparrow starts obsession too.
The title refers to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, where a wager is set and the debt to be paid if unfulfilled, will result in a pound of flesh being taken.
The same character also ends up literally paying Mickey a pound of flesh, in a grim twist on Shylock’s demand in The Merchant of Venice—a gloating doubling down on Shakespearean anti-Semitism.
As Shakespeare said in The Merchant of Venice – and as paraphrased so eloquently by Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn) in Reservoir Dogs – torturing people for information tends to make them say anything to stop the pain.
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Its producers forgot the rule from "The Merchant of Venice" that "all that glisters is not gold."
Without spoiling too many details, the deal has about as many asterisks to the outcome as Shylock’s pound of flesh contract in The Merchant of Venice, or a deal with Darth Vader.
Granted, she looks great in what little there is of her costume--frankly, the only suspense the film generates is whether her outfit has the necessary tensile strength needed to keep everything in place and retain the PG-13 rating--but the trouble is that she can actually act (she did a strong Portia opposite no less of a Shylock than Al Pacino himself in "The Merchant of Venice" a few years ago) and the combination of her genuine talent and intelligence with the silliness of the character she is playing is just too distracting.
Collins, a Cate Blanchett lookalike who made a memorable Portia in 2004’s The Merchant of Venice , has a serene, poised presence even in the goofy midriff-baring costumes she’s forced to wear; like Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia, her Dejah is a worthy warrior and ally, not just interstellar arm candy.