Honest old Shylock is robbed

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven/ Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." Coo-er! Wise words for a film critic to bear in mind, and on that basis alone I've decided to be merciful to Michael Radford's meatand-potatoes, 21st-century, politically correct, GCSE-student version of The Merchant of Venice.

After all, I am a Jewish film critic, and, therefore, perhaps have reason to fear Radford; will he demand that I forfeit my fee, seeing it as cultural usury? (I lend my opinions for you, the readers' interest.) Or worse still, force me to abandon my faith and adopt Christianity?

This, certainly, is the fate of Shylock in the Shakespeare play - and in Radford's film; but while Shakespeare saw no need to go soft on the money-lender, sharing uncritically the anti-Semitism of his era, this take on The Merchant of Venice tries to have its punitive cake and eat it mercifully.

Most authorities agree that the ending of the play, whereby Shylock is humiliated, dispossessed and forcibly converted, is no indication of Shaky's Christian mission. Shaky is bigger, deeper, older and more universal than any mere religious moralising; and the Merchant - which is a tragicomedy, played sometimes dark, other times light - proves this point. Fate is at work here, pagan verities, stoical courage and the exactions of the law.

But a Hollywood film can't afford such depth or ambiguity, so instead we kick off with "Venice, 1596" scrolling up the screen, followed by a little screed about how the Jews are dreadfully persecuted. Soon we get to see The Greatest Living Film Actor, Al Pacino no less, hustled and spat on by the gentile swine.

Chief among his tormentors is Antonio (Jeremy Irons), an etiolated, wafting merchant, who has overextended himself with a string of seagoing ventures, as well as a distinctly homoerotic attachment to Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes).

You know the set up: Bassanio is skint and needs three grand to win fair Portia (scrummy Lynn Collins). Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, but Shylock - seeing an opportunity to strike back at his tormentor - insists that security for the loan be a pound of Antonio's flesh.

Spliced on to this distinctly Old Testamentary plot are the wooing by Bassanio and his feckless chum Gratiano (Kris Marshall) of Portia and her maid Nerissa (Heather Goldenhersh). Portia hangs out on a fab fairytale island out in the lagoon, where she entertains suitors who have to guess which of three caskets

contains her portrait. This version of the three-card scam practised any day of the week along Oxford Street stumps a whole succession of fops: British lords, Spanish counts, Ethiopian princes - but Bassanio gets the girl.

Hist! There's trouble back in Venice, Antonio's ships have all gone down and Shylock is going to get himself a cut of prime Irons. Bassanio and Gratiano rush back with the money to repay the bloodthirsty creditor, but it's Portia, in a cross-dressing impersonation of an eminent legal brain, who manages to save Antonio's life with a bravura display of casuistry.