A gritty, urban take on William SHAKESPEARE′s play of the same name, Measure For Measure transplants the story from Vienna to Melbourne and rips out the Elizabethan comedy to present a often brutal, contemporary gangland drama spurred by a tender romance. Anchored by Hugo WEAVING’s commanding performance as Duke, a local gangster who has kept a personal code of ethics even as he has built a criminal empire, Paul IRELAND’s film is a portrait of different urban tribes struggling to survive in a multicultural metropolis. At the centre of this maelstrom of drugs, racism and passion are progressive Muslim woman Jaiwara and gentle musician Claudio who find themselves thrown together by the film’s opening eruption of violence. The lovers are the film’s heart, but the script by Director Ireland and his late collaborator Damien Hill never lets us forget that we live in an often unforgiving world. (Russell EDWARDS)