MUMBAI: Shemaroo Entertainment has released two new English titles on DVD: ‘Crime and Punishment’, a film based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s successful novel and ‘The Effects of Magic’, an adventurous family drama.
Crime and Punishment depicts the depiction of the recovery of a man’s diseased spirit. The film exposes the soul of a man possessed by both good and evil … a man who cannot escape his own conscience.
Crime and Punishment is directed by Menahem Golan and stars Crispin Glover, John Hurt, Vanessa Redgrave, Margot Kidder and John Neville. The movie has won the Platinum Award at ‘WorldFest Houston.
The story revolves around a struggling intellectual law student Raskolnikove, who is at the Moscow University when Russia is facing the toughest economical revolution of the century. The Rubel, not able to maintain its strength and power within a nation suffering from the peak of poverty and crime, succumbs to the inevitable plague of sicknesses that surround the society of modern day Moscow. During these hard times, Raskolnikove’s ideas lead him to kill an old pawnbroker, who he considers to be scum, in order to steal her fortune. But the chief of the homicide police department in Moscow, who suspects the young law student, decides to launch an investigation and a ‘cat and mouse’ chase begins. In order to redeem himself from his criminal life he ought to face a court case and is taken to Siberia where he learns to accept himself and purify his tormented soul.
The other film, The Effects of Magic is directed by Charlie Martinez and Chuck Martinez and featured Kathy Bates, Melinda Dillon, Robert Carradine and Jacobo Morales among others.
The story revolves around Roody, son of a great and absentee magician, who runs a costume company with his slightly eccentric mother.
The story narrator – his pet rabbit – however decides it’s time Roody had a change from business and begin entertaining the little neighbor girl with off hand tricks he stores in the basement. The bunny then arranges for him to meet a young woman who could also use an alternate from the way her life has been going. All plans suddenly come to a stand still when Roody’s father returns for the mysterious magic cabinet which used to be part of his act. With all these twists in his life, Roody starts to ponder how magic can affect everyone.
