“An homage to those golden years when one murder was sufficient for one crime film” (A. K.), Crime and Punishment is part gripping policier, with the cat-and-mouse game between Raskolnikov and the inspector beautifully translated, and part deconstructed melodrama awash with music. It is the tale of a disaffected slaughterhouse worker, Rahikainen (Markku Toikka), who murders the wealthy businessman who destroyed his tenuous hold on life. Sonya to his Raskolnikov is Eeva (Aino Seppo), a bakery shop worker. Rahikainen's brooding indifference is at once sublimely compelling and absurd, though most of Kaurismäki's dark humor is directed at the moral decrepitude of the police. As in the novel, the film's sense of pervading guilt has little to do with the murder and everything to do with identity in an age of anxiety. But Kaurismäki takes liberties with Dostoyevsky in utterly refusing Rahikainen salvation. Dostoyevsky said of his novel, “This is...a contemporary case, something that could only happen in our day.” Kaurismäki seems to be making the same point.