annbreuer
Not a good adaptation of "Othello" or a good movie, period. It's short at 90 minutes, but probably 30 mins is footage of mediocre high school basketball. Boring. The script is bad, although it is pretty funny to see a bunch of privileged white characters at a stuffy and prestigious prep school deliver their lines in awkward street slang. Worse, someone made the poor choice to explain away Iago's (renamed "Hugo" in this adaptation) motive for persecuting Othello (renamed "Odin") as simple jealously due to Hugo's father's preferential treatment of Odin. This is a major deviation from the spirit of the play, where Iago is certainly jealous of Othello but also has a deeper animus that he explicitly refuses to explain, arguably making him one of Shakespeare's most evil and enigmatic villains. The portrayals of O and Desdemona are OK, but they don't rescue this movie. Also, there is a very disturbing sex scene.
artieup
I can't judge what others, and some "So Called" critics, use as their sole rating of movies etc.. however, for this movie to receive less than a 6 is absolute ridiculous in my opinion.This has been a great movies collection for me for a number of years. I think it is drama at it's best with an modern re-script that wasn't all that bad. As the movie really had a heart felt ending that many movies as of post 2000 fail to do. This is exactly how Shakespeare wanted viewers to feel in regards to Othello.I'm no pro on how well he or she should act in a movie, but I would say Mekhi, Josh, and Julia Stiles did a quite a dam good job on their roles with this movie.Anyhow, each to their own as to how they rate a movie. Believe it or not there are probably over 70% of movie viewers who don't give much a flick about how well a actor/actress acted but how well the movie made them felt and was the plot and ending worth the watch.There really need to be a double standard on movie ratings.. Judgement on the Acting and Judgement on the overall movie plot and ending. You must agree there have been some quite poor acting in movies that however grossed well and many watch over and over. Just my opinion.
Secure230
Unfortunately, the authors of Othello were not aware of the vast differences between races, black and white. To say that a high school student would be aware of these differences is absolutely ridiculous, regardless of whether or not the kids are jealous. Blacks score, on average about 84 on IQ tests, whites 100, but are better athletes and football players. Blacks have different social norms, backgrounds, families, DNA, crime rates, you name it. The kids would become aware of this, later on. How many can say that the way they were in high school, i.e. friends, dates, was the same as when they were 21 or 31, is not true. To say that the reason Negroes do not mate with whites is "jealousy" is absurd. There is good reason for segregation.
Daniel Puselj
This is a great example of what many movies should be about.Jelousy and Revenge were the key elements that made this movie so great and it worked to perfection. The actors were great and they performed spectacularly, especially the scene when Oden kills himself, his suicide speech was very moving and very passionate, I really did feel for him. The drug scenes were a bit too much in my opinion, I don't know what else they could have had instead of that but that is probably the only thing I did not like about the whole movie.In my opinion this would be an ideal movie for anyone to watch. It pretty much contains everything that you'd want in a movie. 10/10
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