Crime and Punishment

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.

As a fan and recent reader of the book, I was intrigued to see that this film was coming on TV. I literally could not get through 15 minutes of this god-awful movie without turning it off. I made an account on IMDb seconds ago specifically so that I could post a review about what a horrific mistake of a film this is. The plot is scrambled and rushed, bearing no resemblance to the actual novel, which I may add is a masterpiece of Russian literature. The acting is flat and stale, and the character development is virtually nonexistent. The minimal character development that does occur, however, is completely incongruous with anything that happens in the novel. Though the book is not particularly long, Dostoevsky manages to develop his characters fully and consistently, a concept which was obviously lost on the group of miscreants who made this "movie". The entire concept of setting this story in the present day is absolutely ludicrous to begin with, but the execution of that misguided idea is so hamfisted that it's nearly painful to watch. This would have been a disappointing film on its own, but the fact that it has been produced under the name "Crime and Punishment", a story which is in no way relevant to this piece of garbage, is a serious crime in itself.

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.

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!

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.