Australian provocateur Geoffrey Wright has realized Shakespeare’s drama of political intrigue as an incredibly violent, drug-filled mobster saga in which the newly installed gang leader lives like a pampered rock star. (It’s certainly more effective than 1991’s Men of Respect, a Brooklyn Mob take on Macbeth starring John Turturro.) Wright fills the torrid air with rhyming couplets and Uzi bullets while an attractively gritty cast recites some of the Bard’s best-known lines (“What’s done is done;” “The milk of human kindness;” “Out, damned spot”) in what has to be one of the most surprisingly comprehensible versions of a Shakespeare play. The dialog is delivered so naturally that after a few scenes, you forget you’re listening to Elizabethan English uttered with Australian accents. The “bubble, bubble, toil and trouble” witches are a trio of nude, lusty lasses, nearly as randy as Macbeth’s (Sam Worthington) wife (Victoria Hill), who convinces her husband to murder the capo, Duncan (Gary Sweet). Madness and mayhem follow.

Shelf Talk: Quite engrossing and entertaining, Macbeth nonetheless will run up against the target hip, young adult audience’s fear of Shakespeare’s “thees” and “thous.” Let the evocative, contemporary gothic box art of the actors do the talking and push the Mobster and gunplay aspects. Arthouse regulars who are already familiar with Wright’s in-your-face work (Romper Stomper, Cherry Falls, Metal Skin) won’t be disappointed. And handsome Worthington, who could emerge as Australia’s next Russell Crowe, is one of the leading players in James Cameron’s high-profile Avatar (due in theaters in 2009).