When I first heard about this reimagined Othello from 2001, I couldn't figure why I'd never seen it--given that the other Shakespeare remakes of that era rank among my favorite movies. And not only that, but it stars Stiles and Hartnett, which usually means kino inbound. What I wasn't expecting was a f**king fetish movie. I mean okay, maybe you can make the argument that Othello is basically the OG cuck porn, and that a remake is duty-bound to recreate that whole deal. But it's not just the miscegenation; the whole movie rings you over the head with over the top worship of the titular basketball american--with every other shot composed of an extreme closeup zoomed in so far you can see his swarthy negroid pores, while loud rap music drills into your ears. Not even good rap, but really sh*tty stuff. It's the kind of thing you'd expect from a modern movie, not something filmed in 2001. I didn't even know they had rap music this sh*tty back then. Now I guess the point of it all is to make you empathize with Yugo and his jealousy, though I feel more sick than jealous. Yugo? Is that his name? Hartnett's character. I guess it must be Iago, but then again maybe not because Othello is named Odin, but anyway whenever Martin Sheen calls him it sounds like Yugo. That doesn't really matter, I guess I'm just stalling so as not to bring up the central conceit of the bmwf relationship--because the entire first act of the movie is about how he's f**king Julia Stiles. Like there's this really creepy scene where he gets into bed with her, but she lives in a dorm, right, and her roommate has to pull the sheets over her face----I think it's the chick who played Felicity in Felicity, but I was pretty drunk at this point so I can't say for sure----and anyway the n--er I mean Odin is like "It's alright, we're not going to do anything, I just like feeling your skin against me." F**king barf. Okay I'm editing this review now sober and it was not Felicity; in fact it was Rain Phoenix. She is not a looker at all. Woof. And like the whole movie is going to be full of this sh*t, I'm thinking: scenes of Odin being cheered by everyone or like him beating the sh*t out of the guy who plays Foggy in Daredevil. Beat to beat, it's softcore cuck porn. ...Or at least so I thought. Then I kept watching and as it develops, all of that bitterness it inspires in the first half starts to pay off. Not to make a banal comparison but there is a strong Death Note-ness about it. It's regrettable that the first part of the movie is so repulsive but I can understand why they did that. This was a strange one. I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it but if you have the stomach for it, it's definitely an intriguing watch.