Synopsis
Even though he's the only black student at the elite Palmetto Grove Academy, star basketball player and future NBA hopeful Odin James has the adoration of all, including the team's coach and the Dean's beautiful daughter Desi. Odin's troubled friend Hugo, the coach's son, is deeply resentful of his father's preference of Odin on and off the court. When Hugo plots a diabolical scheme to sow the seed of mistrust between O and Desi, it sets in motion a disturbing chain of events which erupts into a firestorm of breathtaking intensity.
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Cast
- Mekhi PhiferOdin James
- Martin SheenCoach Duke Goulding
- Josh HartnettHugo Goulding
- Andrew KeeganMichael Cassio
- Julia StilesDesi Brable
- Rain PhoenixEmily
- Chris FreihoferAssistant Coach
- Elden HensonRoger Calhoun
- John HeardDean Brable
- Anthony JohnsonDell
Recommendations
- 88
New York Post
Exceptionally intelligent and powerful contemporary adaptation. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
To an astonishing degree, O gets the tragic Shakespeare mood, that somber stentorian passion born of hidden slivers of ambition and betrayal. - 70
Los Angeles Times
Essential to the success it manages is Hartnett's low-key, charismatic performance -- cool, withholding, compelling. The triumph of his insinuating Hugo/Iago is how plausible he is, how he manages to convincingly inject poison in so many minds without seeming to be trying. - 63
Miami Herald
What O lacks is a sense of spontaneity: Despite its contemporary dialogue and manner, the movie can't overcome a nagging aura of artifice. - 63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Stripped of its poetry, some of the devices of the tragedy of the Moor come off here as woefully contrived. - 60
TV Guide Magazine
Every character fated to die in Othello meets his or her maker by the time the curtain falls on Blake's adaptation, which means the manicured campus of Palmetto Grove is left littered with slain coeds. - 40
Village Voice
Had Nelson and Kaaya been less concerned with following Othello to the letter and rather had pursued this love affair into uncharted cinematic waters, O might have been more than an unresolved mixture of gimmickry and good intentions. - 40
Newsweek
The actors attack their roles with commitment (Hartnett’s understatement is impressive), but their fervor can’t hide the movie’s implausible, often confusing storytelling.
