Dissing any screen version of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice – particularly a screen version which features Al Pacino – isn't easy, but thankfully director Michael Radford (Il Postino) reduces the effort required.

Let's start with the name. When Baz Luhrman put his own name in front of tale of the star-crossed lovers Rome + Juliet it was clearly an attempt to stamp his own name on his ultra-modern adaptation of Shakespeare's classic. But when Radford here puts the playwright's name in front of the play's title, it's meant to have a distancing effect, Radford seeking to shelter himself from the inevitable accusations of anti-semitism that come with almost any production of this play. But, tellingly, Radford strays from the text – pruning it, rearranging it, contextualising it, squeezing what's normally a near four hour play into a still bum-numbing 138 minutes screen time – making this very much his version of The Merchant of Venice.

The film opens with scrolling titles setting the historical context for the play's anti-semitism and introduces scenes of Jews being thrown from the Rialto bridge while a priest indulges in the sort of hate-speech that today David Blunkett is seeking to make illegal in Shakespeare's homeland (will such a law remove block the DVD release of this film? Now there's an interesting question). Defenders of the play point to words here and phrases there within the text, but given that the title page of the play describes it as being 'The most excellent history of The Merchant of Venice with the extreme crueltie of Shylock the Jew towards the said Merchant in cutting a just pound of flesh' such a defence is a little bit like pissing into the wind. You can call it a Christian comedy if that's what it takes to make you sleep easier at night, but the truth is it's a Jewish tragedy.

Much of Shakespeare's canon of course presents problems. Othello can be seen as being racist. Praising The Taming of the Shrew in these post-feminist times carries with it a challenge and a half. And I won't even start on the portrayal of the Irish in the Bard's canon. But Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and we have to love him, warts and all.

Not only does Radford amp-up the anti-semitism, he also finds a homoerotic sub-text which few before him have bothered with. Jeremy Irons' Antonio is gay, Joseph Fiennes' Bassanio is bi while Lynn Collins' Portia doesn't just indulge in some questionable cross-dressing, she even gets to plant a wet-one on Nerissa.

As with most Shakespeare, you get two stories for the price of one, and in this, the second story (Bassanio's tiresome courting of Portia) is by far the least interesting, especially as it is rendered here. And again as with most Shakespeare, attempts at comedy interleave the tragedy. Yet, despite the presence of the likes of Mackenzie Crook (The Office) and John Sessions in the cast, there's little to laugh at in Radford's Venice.

Shouty Al Pacino plays the Jew, offering a Shylock who it's hard to sympathise with. That Pacino loves Shakespeare we know – we've seen Looking For Richard – but it's hard here for us to love Shakespeare's Shylock, even with an added scene of the forcibly-converted Jew locked out of his local synagogue. Pacino of course carries with him the baggage of a CV full of screen villains and his Shylock is just another villain to add to the list, though played with less of the subtlety of his portfolio of previous performances. But the real fault (even forgiving Al's Bronx diction) again lies with Radford, who has Irons portray the merchant Antonio as a love-sick fool more deserving of our sympathy than the Jew he has previously spat upon.

But, in fairness, Pacino's Shylock is Oscar-worthy compared to the simpering, whimpering Portia played by Lynn Collins (last seen in 13 Going on 30) who appears to have got the role on looks alone. In Radford's hands, the play's not the thing, it's all about looking gorgeous. For the most part, Radford has produced a Merchant Ivory-esque costume-drama version of the play, with sumptuous sets and lavish costumes to distract you from the general dullness of what's being portrayed on the screen and a series of unlikely plot-twists which would leave even the writers of Dallas scratching their heads in wonder. A pity Radford didn't heed the text – someone should have told him that all that glitters is not gold.

Feargal Mc Kay