Krishna
This is an interesting movie. In summary, it is a modern film where everyone talks old Shakespeare. The names are the same for people but the story pretends that it all happens in today’s America. Interesting for the first bit but the novelty wears off pretty quickly. Gun toting, car driving people talking ‘whereforest are thou going, my man?’ gets a bit cheesy soon.
Being a modern version of the play, there are many reinterpretations. The sword is the gun. The longsword is an automatic rifle. And so on. You know what? It actually works for a while. It is hilarious at first and then you tend to wonder, after the novelty wears off, whether it is all that funny after all.
The story, of course, is not new or a surprise. They clearly tell you what story they are telling from the title itself and the house names (families) are also the same – Capulet and Montague.
A touchingly young Leonardo plays Romeo. Diane Claire plays Juliet. Also another nice surprise, seeing this after all these years is that Paul Rudd, in his pre fame days (pre Friends?) is Dave Paris, the hapless suitor of Juliet, a rich Governor’s son. Nice to see where they all started and where they have reached.
Leonardo’s early films, where he proves that he always sought different movies. A nice link to the recent Great Gatsby release. So he was always interested in the classics, it would seem.
Capulets and Montagues are now business families but are feuding, as in the original play by Shakespeare.
Were they gangs? Just riotous youth feuding? The line seems to be blurred. The story is true to the Shakespeare play (I think) but when you see US police coming to investigate the murder of a member of the family and then say ‘banishment’ is the punishment for the crime, that kind of jars, at least to me. Yes, I know that in the original it is the Prince that does that. (Here the police chief is Captain Prince!). Clever, but stretches your credulity.
De Caprio lives the role – of Romeo of course – with convincing love and hate (the anger he shows when his dear friend is slain in a feud is remarkable) but Juliet? I am afraid it is not a strong portrayal by Claire Danes.
The friend of Romeo is black in the movie. His death starts the feud spewing out of control.
You wonder how true the narration is to the original movie. It seems very close even if you do not remember the details of the original play you read so long ago and the reviews say that even ignoring the modern setting as discussed above there are only minor variations (for instance Juliet sees and speaks to Romeo before he dies) and that is good enough for me.
The father of Juliet is very convincing and the father of Romeo has not a great role to play. The message sent to Romeo is through Registered Post and it misses him because he is away travelling. But then I can go on and on about the modernization of the story but you already probably get the gist of it very well.
For the novelty of it all, let us say a 5/10
— Krishna