"The Merchant of Venice" is an uneven new version of Shakespeare’s classic play, slightly modified for modern audiences. It is directed by Indian born Michael Radford, who reached his peak with "Il Postino." He also directed some episodes of "Homicide: Life on the Street," one of the all-time greatest TV police shows.

The film starts promisingly. Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) wants to marry the lovely heiress, Portia (Lynn Collins), but he doesn’t have enough money. His best friend, Antonio (Jeremy Irons) decides to help him out, and he borrows the cash from Shylock (Al Pacino), a Jewish money lender.

Shylock despises the Jew hating Antonio for mistreating him in public, and he eventually tries to exact a pound of flesh from him for missing a payment.

The film is dependent on the two leads, Pacino and Irons. Both give competent and lively performances, but neither does their best work.

I could never forget for a moment that I was seeing Al Pacino playing Shylock. In contrast, during "Ray" Jamie Fox wasn’t acting the part of Ray Charles, he was Ray Charles.

This new film version of "The Merchant of Venice" has been billed as a comedy, but the only amusing part occurs when the lovely Portia impersonates a male judge. With her soft face and ultra feminine body, Portia makes a highly unlikely man. However, her unnecessarily severe ruling defuses the comedy.

This film presented me with a bit of a critical quandary. It’s an engaging mostly faithful version of the Shakespeare play, which makes good use of the Venetian setting. But because of the obvious anti Semitism of the film, I couldn’t bring myself to give it a really high rating or totally immerse myself in the film.

We are told in an added prologue that despite the fact that Venice was the most advanced city in the world, Jews were still discriminated against. They were not allowed to own property and they had to wear red when they went out in public.

Despite the well-intentioned introductory comments, the film ends up reinforcing Jewish stereotypes. Shylock is constantly dehumanized and called "the Jew" throughout the whole film. Also when Shylock gets his comeuppance, we are supposed to feel that the bloodthirsty Jewish protagonist gets what he deserves in the end.

Even the term "Shylock" is used to delineate a stereotypical greedy, heartless Jew. It’s the Jewish equivalent of being called Aunt Jemina.

"The Merchant of Venice" isn’t a disaster, but it’s certainly not the first Shakespeare film I would recommend. It doesn’t compare well with Kenneth Branaugh’s work, and it made me want to see one of his Shakespeare films again.