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Hamlet [DVD] [Widescreen] [2001] [1 disc] [Multilingual] [Region 1]

1 disc
Region 1 USA/CA (info)

Ethan Hawke stars in this modern update of Shakespeare's classic play. He portrays a young filmmaker in New York City who struggles to gain power of his deceased father's company, even as the new boss (Kyle MacLachlan) manages to take total control of the proceedings. Michael Almereyda's (NADJA) film is another stylized adaptation of the Bard's words, featuring standout performances by the entire cast. For other modern Shakespeare adaptations, see Baz Luhrmann's ROMEO AND JULIET and Julie Taymor's TITUS.
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- Rating - Some violence.
Additional Info

Manufacturer Part Number (MPN): 18314
Credits

Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Julia Stiles, Bill Murray, Sam Shepard, Samuel Shepard Rogers, Diane Venora, Casey Affleck, Liev Schreiber, Karl Geary, Steve Zahn, Jeffrey Wright, Dechen Thurman, Paul Bartel
Critic Reviews

"...Voluptuous and rewarding...[a] vital and sharply intelligent film..."
New York Times
"...Conceptually vivid..."
Variety
"...A visual knockout....Thou wilt be dazzled..."
Rolling Stone
"...Ingeniously and divertingly updating Shakespeare to corporate New York....HAMLET benefits from playfully iconographic casting..."
Film Comment
"...Jangling and incisive..." -- Rating: A
Entertainment Weekly
"...An insistently tricky piece of conceptual art....The impromptu tone is often charming..."
Sight and Sound
"...Almereyda has infused HAMLET with such a contemporary sensibility that today's audiences can't help but relate..." -- 4 out of 5 stars
Box Office
"...Almereyda imagines HAMLET taking place in present-day Manhattan with such vigor, insight and originality that the power and immediacy of his film makes Shakespeare accessible in an exciting and provocative manner..."
Los Angeles Times
"...Bill Murray is a good choice as Polonius....It demonstrates how Shakespeare, who in a way invented modern English, has so dominated it ever since that his meanings are always broadly clear to us, even despite unfamiliar usages..."
Chicago Sun-Times
"Sure, the movie's a stunt, but one that succeeds much more often than it stumbles."
Wall Street Journal