(Rated R, 95 mins.)
It seemed like a good idea at the time. An innocent remake of Shakespeare’s “Othello” in modern form, from director Tim Blake Nelson, best known as the sidekick character to George Clooney in “O Brother Where Art Thou?”. But in wake of Columbine massacre where high school murders are a regular occurrence, the movie was shelved for later release by two years. So whose idea was it to release it at all? For one, the timing seemed right with recent Josh “Pearl Harbor” Harnett success and Julia-every-teen-idol-Stiles. Mekhi Phifer plays Odin, the title character, who starts out as a handsome, charismatic, athletic hopeful to the Basketball teams coach (Martin Sheen). He’s even dating the babe, Desi (Julia Stiles), without approval from her headmaster father. Enter Hugo (Josh Harnett), who has dad issues, drug issues and is seeking attention. What better way to do that then ruin, manipulate and destroy everybody else’s lives. Suddenly we watch good guy O become an overnight nightmare which surprised me since his character seemed to demonstrate more well — character, than that. The soundtrack doesn’t help in keeping what should be the story’s emotional pacing on a monotone scale with constant rap during even the most tender of moments. There’s no purpose in making a movie that reflects high school violence thus making this adaptation a disaster. As the credits rolled, they could have spared us all the violence and empty sadness, by just shooting the director.