The New York Times called the film "a beat generation version"[2][3] of the novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The film differs from the book in some of its plot elements and characterizations, and it takes place in contemporary Santa Monica rather than in 19th-century Russia.

A California law student murders a pawnbroker, then matches wits with the detective on the case.

[4] In a contemporary review for The New Republic, Stanley Kauffmann commented that "modern versions of classics are generally more clever than convincing because the very term 'classic' means a timeless work ... that need not be transplanted.

... [B]y reason of its attendant skills and an innocent, unpretentious earnestness of address, [the film] is a moderately interesting attempt to state the material of a vast symphony with a small jazz combination.