The production comes hot on the heels of two other high-profile but more doctrinaire

The production comes hot on the heels of two other high-profile but more doctrinaire interpretations - Peter Sellars's LA riots version and Peter Zadek's stock market take. Who's In It?Henry Goodman is a magnificent Shylock, with David Bamber as the merchant and Derbhle Crotty as Portia. What Is It? Trevor Nunn's inspired revival, set in a minimally evoked 1920s, offers new perspectives on Shakespeare's tragi-comedy. Nathalie Baye grabs viewers' attention as the damaged, lovelorn lead, while director Tonie Marshall maps out the drama with soul and delicacy.West End: ABC Swiss Centre Repertory: Cine Lumiere. Citizen Kane may be the more weighty, rounded work, but this is a heap more fun.West End: Curzon Soho, RenoirVENUS BEAUTY (15, 105 mins)Director: Tonie MarshallStarring: Nathalie Baye, Bulle Ogier, Samuel Le BihanRevolving around the lives and loves of a trio of French beauticians, Venus Beauty moves from soap-operatics to farce to tragedy, and alights at last on a lover's kiss beneath a shower of sparks.

A giddy, wilfully over-the-top tale of police corruption south of the border, this conspires to cast all-American Charlton Heston as a high-minded Hispanic and Marlene Dietrich as a Mexican spitfire Amazingly, Welles gets away with it. It possesses a certain unfocused energy, but finally has too little to say, and spends too long saying it.West End: Warner Village West EndTOUCH OF EVIL (12, 108 mins)Director: Orson WellesStarring: Orson Welles, Charlton HestonThis re-edit of Welles's 1958 noir tightens up some of the film's sloppier moments without hampering its delirious forward rush. Just the Ticket's ongoing Andy and Andie show finds Garcia coping well as the yarn's smart-talking opportunist, while MacDowell struggles to flesh out an underwritten turn as his harassed ex-girlfriend. And local cinemasJUST THE TICKET (15, 115 mins)Director: Richard WenkStarring: Andy Garcia, Andie MacDowellClearly infatuated with Seventies American cinema, Richard Wenk's low- budget debut spins a freewheeling account of a hustling tout at large in New York City. Repertory: National Film TheatreCRUEL INTENTIONS (15, 97 mins)Director: Roger KumbleStarring: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan PhillippeSee The Independent Recommends, right.West End: Clapham Picture House, Odeon Camden Town, Odeon Kensington, Odeon Marble Arch, Odeon Swiss Cottage, Odeon West End, Ritzy Cinema, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Chelsea. Script and direction play safe throughout.West End: ABC Panton Street. Owen's portentous voice-over stands in for his stiff non-acting.

A standard gambling caper, Croupier sees Clive Owen's casino worker (and aspiring novelist) playing with a deck of three queens: girlfriend Gina McKee, colleague Kate Hardie, and South African card-sharp Alex Kingston. And local cinemasCROUPIER (15, 89 mins)Director: Mike HodgesStarring: Clive Owen, Alex Kingston, Gina McKeeMike Hodges' latest thriller is a far cry from the taut, tough trajectory he brought to the recently re-issued Get Carter. His ham-fisted bit of mimicry makes you pine for the real McCoy.West End: Barbican Screen, Chelsea Cinema, Clapham Picture House, Odeon Camden Town, Odeon Haymarket, Odeon Kensington, Odeon Swiss Cottage, Renoir, Ritzy Cinema, Screen on the Green, Screen on the Hill, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Fulham Road, Warner Village West End. Playing the film's social-climbing hack, Branagh reads his lines in an irksome, ongoing Woody Allen whine.

But it is Kenneth Branagh, in the central role, who inflicts the most damage on this fitfully funny yarn. Here, America's nerd auteur falls into the same trap that Altman tumbled into when making The Player - roping in a bunch of beautiful people (Winona Ryder, Leonardo DiCaprio) to show what good sports they are by pouring scorn on beautiful people. Unfortunately, in Celebrity, Woody Allen's line of attack is compromised by his being at least half in love with the very glitterati he sets out to savage. And local cinemasCELEBRITY (18, 113 mins)Director: Woody AllenStarring: Kenneth Branagh, Melanie GriffithGood satire doesn't pull its punches. Jennifer Tilly copes well as a leather-clad dominatrix, but when she's electrocuted in her bathtub, all that's left is an assemblage of stalkings, stabbings and cheesy gags.West End: Plaza, Ritzy Cinema, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Trocadero, Warner Village West End. BRIDE OF CHUCKY (18, 89 mins) Director: Ronny Yu Starring: Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, John RitterThe latest graduate from the Scream school of self-referentiality, this strings together a series of humorous asides and knee-jerk shock tactics. "But let's face it - employees would probably like the idea of having Friday off even more.".

The same argument goes for whatever feeling you're trying to create."The fact is, concludes James, that when you ask most employers why they've introduced these Friday phenomena, they tend to say that employees like it. It would just sound silly, and I'd be aware that some people would hate it. Mine is the Thunderbirds theme - it can make me overcome almost anything! But I wouldn't want it played over a loudspeaker. So I get people to think of a piece of music they find inspirational.