Appalling.
Within minutes of the film's onset, the ideas of Raskolnikov's published paper are attributed to Nazis and consequently to Nietzsche. Anathema.
Crime and Punishment was published by Dostoyevsky in 1866. Nietzsche wrote Also Sprach Zarathustra *after* 1882. Nietzsche's last written work before dementia took hold was published 1888. Nietzsche died 1900. Nietzsche's sister published Will To Power in 1901. The National Socialist Party (the Nazis) formed in 1920.
Golan's "liberty" with the reality of Nietzschean philosophy only serves to reinforce insidious disinformation. Contrary to the insinuations of Golan's script, Nietzsche was *not* a Nazi; Nietzsche detested both the state and the notion of racial supremacy. Anyone who bothers to read his works knows this. Unfortunately precious few people ever bother to even lift a cover, relying instead on the sewage published by people like Golan, who obviously has also not bothered to even glance at Nietzsche's work.
This _movie_ is an insult to both Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche, never mind its myriad other affronts to the art of film, in general.
Attributing Raskolnikov's behavior to Nietzsche or Nietzschean philosophy is unforgivable. Not only was the writer of Crime and Punishment from a different generation (Dostoyevsky b. 1821; Nietzsche b.1844), there was *nothing* German about the ideology Raskolnikov had published in his paper. "Deutschland über alles," at the time Crime and Punishment was published, was known as an appeal to the various German monarchs to give the creation of a united Germany a higher priority than the independence of their small states, not a call to a race of "super" men.
Did Golan actually *read* the book written by Dostoyevksy? My money says he read 3/4 of the Cliff Notes for Crime and Punishment, and used cultural "knowledge" he found in various chatrooms and forums on dial-up BBS and the internet to inform his screenplay.
This film is like the bad dream of a university sophomore in 1998, who nodded off despite ingesting a full bottle of No-Doz, as he was trying to write the final paper for Russian Lit (went to class, but read none of the books), the day after he learned he got a D- for his final grade in Survey of Existential Philosophers. Also made a D in history, 20th Century Europe Before the Cold War.
If you have read Crime and Punishment and enjoyed it, do *not* watch this if you seek to heighten/enrich that experience. If you are supposed to read Crime and Punishment, but think you can watch this film and get what you need, you are headed for an epic fail.
If you're into msting, however, there may be some value to viewing this.
Aside from numerous fails with time period inconsistencies that only make sense in the context of a bad dream (note: not a nightmare, just some crappy, disconnected dream): wardrobe *sucks* and contributes massively to the overall unbelievability of the world this script created; the makeup is... more-often-than-not very obviously make-up, poorly applied; everyone delivers their lines thoroughly stilted, unconvincing in the extreme. Props and set design are exactly as one might have in a bad dream, especially if, in real life, one has worked stock at a big box store, Walmart, or Best Buy.
What an awful waste of celluloid. I wish Mystery Science Theater 3000 was still making new episodes on TV, and that either Joel and the 'bots or Mike and the 'bots could give this thing the roasting it deserves.
