Crime and Punishment

Setting this story in the modern era was a huge mistake. Frankly, this ruined the film for me, and if it had not been for the remnants of Dostoyevsky's brilliance shining through this mess I would not have bothered watching the film through to the end.

one of films who deserves, for the good intentions, all the applause. Crispin Glover has the right to his Raskolnikov and the presence of Vanessa Redgrave, John Hurt, John Neville is a good thing. and, maybe, the only sin is the desire of innovation, ignoring everything , of the director. sure, the ambition to transform the story of Rodion Raskolnikov in an universal explanation for the Russian history is not a real bad idea. but, in this case, it is not reasonable. "Crime and Punishment" is a solid novel. it has all the tools for a great/decent adaptation in its structure and words and characters. it is not a play who becomes , in the mind of director, something more than original. so, it could be better. if the ambition to impress was low.

each adaptation is occasion for present personal style. the dose is essential. in this case, basic sin are innovations. Nietzsche and Stalin, Russia after 1991 and crumbs of Hitler/Ceaușescu speech, a story without borders or soul, great actors in not inspired roles. only virtue - the measure of fragility for novel. Dostoyevski is not rubber toy. and the ambition of director/scriptwriter to do a personal version is a big error. because his Crime and Punishment is almost fake. the confession of Raskolnikov - a profound injury against novel. the relations between characters - chain of mistakes. only excuse - the good intentions. but to use a really good cast for a poor drawing is expression only for a great blind ambition. desire to say a classic story in yours manner, with yours mark, with selfish attitude is a mistake out of words.

I came across this on Netflix UK, and thought why not.

Well I have to say it's one of the worst films I have ever seen. It's more like a play than a film.

Almost everything about the film is bad, but its setting and weirdness do give it something, so worth a watch if you want to experience something different.

The plot is OK, but the characters seem a bit dim, constantly explaining the obvious and doing everything as you would expect.

Again, its a very odd film and worth a watch just for that aspect.

Enjoy!

I watched about 20 minutes of the movie and was so stunned that i had to turn my computer on, and hoping to find out this is some kind of parody, or at least to see this was this director's first and last movie. Now finding out that he made more than 100 movies I really don't understand how this came to be such a bad movie.

I didn't expect that a movie could be as good as that great novel, but this is just the opposite. It's like watching a episode of soap-opera, there is no real characterization, lines are so straight forward and dumb, and such a great cast of actors looks like a local amateur group. As i'am writing this, great John Hurt is on the screen playing inspector, and it still looks awful.

Definitely one the worst movies I've ever seen.