The title is enough to strike fear into the hearts of the testosterone-laden around the world.  But don't worry – O isn't Oprah's big move from making crappy books into crappy films (that's already happened with Where the Heart Is).  It's a modernization of Shakespeare's Othello set at a Charleston, South Carolina prep school, and despite the heavy baggage it lugs into theatres, O is a pretty decent flick.

That baggage, in case you've been living under a rock, is the film's violent content and target audience, which caused the original distributor to push back targeted release dates for two years before dumping it off onto a smaller, gutsier company.  You're probably thinking O is one violent sumbitch, but it isn't – the film simply had the misfortune of being scheduled for release around the same time as Colombine, and since it's about high school students and murder, and stars actors popular with the under-17 crowd, people got freaked out.

Unlike Baz Luhrmann's updating of Romeo + Juliet, this film doesn't keep the Bard's dialogue intact, which will be welcome to some and considered a tragedy to others.  The action takes place at Palmetto Groves, a private school home to a successful basketball program run by Coach Duke Goulding (Martin Sheen, Apocalypse Now Redux), which means the Duke of Venice's court has been transformed into a basketball court.  The Hawks are headed to the state tournament, thanks to the prowess of senior Odin James (Mekhi Phifer, Shaft).

The film begins at a pep rally for the team in which Coach Duke presents Odin the team MVP award after emotionally confessing that he loves his high-scoring threat like a son.  Not the kind of thing you want to hear when you're the Coach's real son, like Hugo (Josh Hartnett, Pearl Harbor).  To make matters worse, when Odin is handed the trophy, he calls down sophomore Michael Cassio (Andrew Keegan, 10 Things I Hate About You) to accept the award with him.  Why, it's almost enough to set somebody off on a murderous rampage, isn't it?

Most of the elements of Shakespeare's play are here, including Odin's girlfriend, Desi (Julia Stiles, Save the Last Dance), who also happens to be the daughter of Palmetto Grove's Dean, who is named Brable instead of Brabantio (John Heard, Pollock).  Hugo has a pawn in Roger (Elden Henson, The Mighty), and Desi's friend Emily (Rain Phoenix) gets wise to the whole thing before anybody else.  The only thing surprising here, at least when it comes to the story, is that Hugo and Desi share very few scenes together, and it's never clear whether he wants her for his own or not (it sure doesn't seem like he does).  O isn't as heavy on the race stuff as I had expected, either, even though Odin is a real fly in the buttermilk as the only black student at Palmetto Grove.

Hartnett really shines as the oft-overlooked Hugo, who is one of the most likable, admirable antagonists to hit the screen in a while.  As he plants both evidence and seeds of doubt in anyone he pleases, you have to wonder how he'd fare as a contestant on Survivor or Big Brother.

O was directed by Tim Blake Nelson, who is probably best known as Delmar from O Brother, Where Art Thou? (you know, the Soggy Bottom Boy who wasn't George Clooney or John Turturro).  The script was written by debut scribe Brad Kaaya, who does a good job at changing the setting of the play and incorporating a handful of Shakespeare's original lines, as well.

1:35 –

for violence, a scene of strong sexuality, language and drug use