Crime and Punishment

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.

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.

Strayed too far from the essence of the book and characters for me. Hurt was very good, that's about it on the acting side. I didn't think the Rodion Raskolnikov character was anywhere like that of the book, and poorly acted.

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.

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.