Julia Stiles has become a household name since filming O

It is widely believed that the picture's US distributor Miramax delayed its release because O's onscreen violence uncomfortably mirrored the real-life Columbine High School massacre in April 1999, which left 15 people dead and shook the nation.

The film's director Tim Blake Nelson said: "we spent the next year [after Columbine] enduring a lot of postponements of release dates with Miramax until finally they were admirably frank and said 'look, we just don't think we can release this film in the current climate'."

Although it does not use Shakespeare's language, the screenplay follows Othello quite closely.

In this modern retelling the leading character Odin James is a basketball star, the only black student in an elite all-white private Southern school.

Jealous rage

Odin seems to have it all, including a loving relationship with a pretty student called Desi, played by Julia Stiles.

Odin even has the admiration of the school's basketball coach.

All this leaves Hugo, the coach's son and Odin's best friend, boiling with jealous rage.

Hugo manipulates a scheme to bring Odin down. Soon he has infiltrated Odin's mind, planting doubts that unleash forces leading to a very bloody conclusion.

There is also speculation that O was further delayed from release last year because of politics.

The film, which includes a harrowing rape scene in addition to its brutal ending, could have proved an embarrassment to Miramax's co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, who was actively campaigning for the Democrats in the 2000 US presidential campaign.

Weinstein could have found that backing O would have put him at odds with the Democrats' White House candidates, particularly Senator Joseph Lieberman, who had been strongly castigating Hollywood for its violence.

New distributor

The film narrowly avoided passing into oblivion when a new US distributor, Lions Gate, came to O's rescue and committed to releasing it on 31 August.

The character of Othello becomes basketball-playing Odin

But the controversy surrounding the film's violence will not necessarily abate.

Tim Blake Nelson staunchly defends his picture, declaring: "I defy anyone to say that the movie fetishises or encourages violence, I think it does quite the opposite."

In fact, the filmmaker says he was drawn to the screenplay, written by Brad Kayaa, because it positioned O as "a movie about the consequences of violence and the causes of violence in the teen environment, not about the attractiveness of it".

One benefit of the two-year delay in O's release is that two of its stars, Julia Stiles and Josh Hartnett, virtual unknowns when the picture was shot, now enjoy much bigger Hollywood profiles, which should help the film at the box office.

The film boasts strong performances, not just from Stiles and Hartnett, but also from Mekhi Phifer who plays the central Othello-like figure and becomes the target of evil manipulations.

Phifer, who is well known for his roles in Soul Food and Clockers, infuses his performance with just the right spirit.

Dignity

Blake Nelson said: "He just exudes dignity. Within five minutes of sitting with him, I knew this was the person to play the role. I never even bothered to ask him to read the part."

Some critics find the notion of transplanting Othello to an American high school preposterous.

But to my mind this is one of the few contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare that works really well.

While it does not use his language, it shows the power of the playwright's ideas and employs his insights to throw some light on the seemingly intractable and very contemporary problem of teen violence.

It is also a rare instance of a teen-targeted film that has real substance.