Crime and Punishment--spoilers alert

This movie is an obvious riff on Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Heck, there is even a not-so-subtle clue in the movie when Jill breaks into Abe's house and finds the book with his notes in it related to the murder. The difference is that whereas Raskolnikov kills an old miser without whom the world is a better place for financial reasons, thinking he will use her money for a good cause, Abe kills the judge to give meaning to his life. Both men justify the killing by appealing to a higher moral ground, and both are horribly wrong. But whereas Raskolnikov's odyssey develops into a struggle to save his soul, Abe turns out to be a coward who would kill again, this time for purely instrumental reasons. Woody is not Dostoyevsky, but still, I thought the film was really good, and a food for thought.