Rotten
This arty melodrama is not likely to make teenage America get down with Shakespeare.
David Ansen, Newsweek
O
Trust. Seduction. Betrayal.
2001 · 1h 35m · R
Drama, Romance, Thriller
Directed by
Tim Blake Nelson
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O
Overview
Even though he's the only black student at the elite Palmetto Grove Academy, star basketball player Odin James has the adoration of all, including the team's coach and the Dean's beautiful daughter Desi. Odin's troubled friend Hugo, the coach's son, deeply resentful of his father's preference of Odin on and off the court, plots a diabolical scheme to sow the seed of mistrust between O and Desi, setting in motion a disturbing chain of events which erupts into a firestorm of breathtaking intensity.
Director and cast
- Tim Blake Nelson Director
- Mekhi Phifer as Odin James
- Martin Sheen as Coach Duke Goulding
- Josh Hartnett as Hugo Goulding
- Andrew Keegan as Michael Cassio
- Julia Stiles as Desi Brable
- Rain Phoenix as Emily
- Chris Freihofer as Assistant Coach
- Elden Henson as Roger Calhoun
- John Heard as Dean Brable
- Anthony Johnson as Dell
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes
Top critics, in their words
64%
Tomatometer
Rotten
This transferral of the tragedy of the Moor to a contempo American high school is something that never should have gone further than a class assignment to see if it could be made to work.
Todd McCarthy, Variety
Rotten
In the end, the Shakespearean ideas collapse on film because of the youthful callowness of the characters.
Andrew Sarris, New York Observer
Rotten
On your already groaning Shakespeare for Teens video shelf, stack this one above 10 Things I Hate About You ... and quite a bit below Romeo + Juliet.
Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
Rotten
It's a doomy dirge of a movie, in which the protagonists, or at least the actors who play them, aren't equipped to handle their outsize passions.
Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture
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