O (15, 94 mins) Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett, Julia Stiles, Martin Sheen, Rain Phoenix. Now showing at Cineworld, Swindon

"Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again . . ."

So laments Shakespeare's much abused Moor, Othello, as he chews on the rumours of his beloved Desdemona's infidelity.

O resets the Bard's tragedy to the fraternity houses and locker rooms of an American high school, where green-eyed passion corrupts the lives of a group of students.

Odin James (Phifer), aka O, is the star player on the Palmetto Grove basketball team. Beloved by the other students, not least the dean's daughter Desi (Stiles), he is the sole black student in an all-white prep school.

Fellow team-mate Hugo (Hartnett), son of grizzled team coach Duke Goulding (Sheen), despises Odin because his father treats O more like a son than him.

Consumed by rage and jealousy, Hugo resolves to destroy Odin by exploiting the lad's one weakness: his inability to trust Desi with other men.

Director Tim Blake Nelson made O almost four years ago, but the film was delayed due to unfortunate similarities between the subject matter and the Columbine tragedy.

Screenwriter Brad Kaaya abandons Shakespeare's rhyming couplets and attempts to capture the spirit of the original play.

The resetting to the tribal warfare of the basketball court is surprisingly effective, providing a highly charged backdrop to Hugo's vicious mind games.

Phifer is compelling as the poor unsuspecting victim of the piece, and Stiles radiates wholesomeness, and naivety. Hartnett isn't entirely convincing as a master manipulator, but he certainly exudes the charisma necessary to pull of his despicable plan.

Rating: 6 out of 10