yet again, here we are posting an assignment...go figure. this movie reminded me of the other plays i've seen and read by Shakespeare. he is kind of a one trick pony type of guy to me. throw in some differences in plotlines but they focus a lot on jealousy, trust, power, race and blood. and usually a large number of the cast dies. like in Macbeth. i can't say it's a bad way of going about things, it is effective because those are some of the most fundamental issues with being a human being. i really just can't get over the fact that no matter what i read of his, i keep thinking that if two people would actually communicate and be good human beings that the whole thing would be solved and 16 people, 4 dogs, 9 tilapia and a few plebians wouldn't need to die for the protagonist to see the light. Luckily, this isn't that sort of play.But anyway...i will say that Al is the man for making me hate him so much in this movie. But i will say that he can't expect anyone to treat him like a human when he's a total asshole to everyone else and treats them like crap because they're not Jews. It's as the pacifists say, violence begets violence and that is an appropriate observation here. But it just pisses me off that they force Shylock to convert. No one should have to do that to save their property and life. Its like every time he starts to make his way up the social ladder he gets bitch slapped back down to below a dog again. So in the end i just ended up feeling like he did get the shafting of a lifetime every time. i suppose that's maybe the point...