Bad Lieutenant (1992)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The title makes it really obvious what the film is about, and I recognised it because of the leading actor as well, I was hoping the four stars out of five critics give it would be fitting, directed by Abel Ferrara (The Driller Killer, King of New York). Basically a nameless corrupt New York police Lieutenant (Harvey Keitel) struggles with various personal problems and various addictions. The Lieutenant abuses his position with his vices, indulging in heavy gambling that has got him in trouble with the mob, taking a high amount of drugs such as cocaine, and abusing his body having sex with various hookers, he even takes advantage of two teenage girls caught speeding and without a licence, exploiting them for his own pleasure. But then he is faced with a situation that forces him to reassess his life, the Lieutenant is investigating the brutal rape of a Nun (Frankie Thorn) by two young men. The Lieutenant is searching for the men, but the Nun refuses to identify them, as she has stuck with her religion and forgiven them, and to make matters worse the Lieutenant has bizarre visions of Jesus (Paul Hipp), causing him to break down begging for forgiveness. However a witness points him to the two rapists, rather than arrest them he puts them on a bus with a cigarette box containing $30,000 from a drug deal he did, in the end however the Lieutenant pays the price for his lifestyle, he is shot while parked in his car by a passerby, many bystanders realise he has been murdered and gather. Also starring Victor Argo as Beat Cop, Paul Calderon as Cop, Leonard L. Thomas as Cop, Robin Burrows as Ariane, Victoria Bastel as Bowtay, Paul Hipp as Jesus, Brian McElroy as Lieutenant's Son, Frankie Acciarito as Lieutenant's Son, Peggy Gormley as Lieutenant's Wife, Stella Keitel as Lieutenant's Daughter, Shawn McClean as Korean Store Hood, John Steven Jones as Korean Store Hood, Anthony Ruggiero as Lite and Vincent Laresca as J.C. Kietel certainly gives a brave performance as the bad lieutenant who takes advantage of his authority, he even get nude and talks dirty while masturbating, it is odd that the characters have no names, but it kind of adds to the strangeness of the film, it is overpowered by surreal imagery, as well as brutal violence and sexually explicit material, I'm not sure if it was quite my cup of tea, but it was an interesting enough neo-noir crime drama. Worth watching!

No doubt Harvey Keitel is an excellent actor and in Bad Lieutenant Harvey portrays a dirty cop which is right up his alley as an actor. The Bad Lieutenant's name is not important which is more of a symbolism that this bad Lieutenant's life is not important but rather meaningless. As the Lieutenant continues to drive around New York city supposedly representing the city of New York's police department fighting crime, the bad Lieutenant is actually spiralling further and further out of control by digesting a junkies dose of cocaine each day and drinking himself into oblivion by night.The story evolves around a beautiful young nun who is raped in her Catholic church by two young men who attend the local school attached to the church where the nun is raped. As the investigation begins the nun is reluctant to incriminate the two young men who raped her. Instead, she enters the confessional and asks the priest hearing her confession to keep his oath of privacy and she will too by not telling the police who raped her as she has forgiven them already.The bad Lieutenant is not as forgiving, but as he continues to steal from local grocery store owners, rack up insurmountable gambling debts with the local bookies, commit lewd acts with young teenagers driving without a license, and take drug stashes for his personal use from the drug dealers, the bad Lieutenant chases down the nun's two rapists. As his own life is spiralling out of control we the audience wonder how the bad Lieutenant will revenge the rape of the young nun. This is not a story of redemption, but rather a story of a Lieutenant who has lost himself in the world of crime, drugs, and gambling and has lived the first 40 odd years of his life without fear of dying on the streets of New York. Harvey Keitel provides the audience with another strong performance but the story line itself is simply one dimensional and the bad Lieutenants repetitive bad habits and rants to the almighty Jesus or anyone else who will listen to him are quite frankly boring and lead the audience to the inevitable conclusion that the bad Lieutenant by title alone is not very good. I give the film a 2 out of 4 star rating for Mr. Keitel's strong acting, but I must say that writer/director Abel Ferrara's vision of a bad Liutenant in the city of New York's police force has been done many times before with better results than in this film.

Most people will dismiss this as one of the worst movies they've seen. Mainly because the movie has an amoral main character and because the movie isn't entertaining and mostly uncomfortable to watch. But with the subject being mainly corruption and the theme redemption with an unlikeable character I find it understandable. I myself love this movie since I am into heavy stuff that makes me think and fill me with dread. This movie manages both if you ask me. I feel it is such a strong movie with some existential philosophy about a corrupt man starting to feel guilt about his life. Leading to his quest for redemption. The story plays out well, showing our main character's irresponsible ways ranging from gambling, drug abuse, taking bribes to harassing young women. I think it is such a tragic movie. The director certainly did a great job if you ask me, considering the hard subject he did his job quite thoughtfully making the story and plot convincing. Leading to a movie in my opinion one of the best tragedies ever put on film.Now Harvey Keitel is an actor I have the utmost respect for. I have yet to see a bad movie he has been in. He often plays roles that are hard to play and where most actors tend to slip a Little in playing their characters, I think Harvey often does his job strongly and convincingly. I imagine if another actor tried to do what Harvey did in this movie many actors would have made the character laughable instead of uncomfortable, pitiful and convincing. He is a subtle actor even in his most outrageous roles, also quite graceful. This movie is no exception in his acting. I could relate to his character, even though he was such an amoral character with very few redeeming qualities. I only feel this way to a few actors and just to name a few like Gary Oldman, Denzel Washington, Al Pacino and Michael Caine (I didn't write them all since it isn't about them). So yes, I am very fond of Harvey Keitel. He is a rare talent that doesn't get much recognition. But he is a professional and he keeps his life private which I respect even more.This is a thought provoking movie where the audience has to take part in the Lieutenant's life which is a corrupt life. It has a simple plot in which the Lieutenant is trying to find the rapists of a nun and find redemption. The story is good in which it perfectly shows how corrupt our Lieutenant is and it is full of subtleties where the Lieutenant even though harsh and corrupt, hides a good man that went wrong ways with wrong decisions. Oh and the existential part? The lieutenant is looking for redemption and try to do one good thing in order to forgive himself, what can be more existential than that? Trying to find meaning to his life which he has been wasting a lot. What a waste his life was by the way. After each time I watch the movie I begin to feel grateful for my dull life, because although it is dull I haven't sunken as deep as the Lieutenant. So in my opinion this is a movie that has to be watched again and again. Although it doesn't fall into everyone's taste. It is a hard movie to watch after all.

Abel Ferrara's ultra gritty classic Bad Lieutenant holds up and in my opinion is Harvey Keitel's best performance ever. Of course, Mr. Keitel is always excellent. But here he goes above and beyond and is perfect in this role. He is a gambling addicted, junkie, alcoholic, perverted thief cop swimming in an ocean of depravity. He has a mean streak as well and is on a serious decent into his own private hell in this character study. The film takes place in early 90's NYC, when it was still a rough and dangerous environment. The Rotten Apple's most rotten police officer is on a real tough case. When a nun gets gang raped and the church is desecrated, Keitel is on the case. Based on a real life case, where the public was so outraged there was a reward for 50 g's to whoever apprehends the suspects. Even by the amoral standards of our anti hero, the Bad Lieutenant these guys are the scum of the Earth. Harvey Keitel more than does his part in carrying this film delivering a volatile, explosive performance with searing screen presence to boot. Abel Ferrara made his best film here that is hard, bleak and downbeat in its vision of a man who's life is spinning out of control. Harvey Keitel's performance is second to none and as bad as this guy is there is room for sympathy for his character as he brings not only pain, but humanity as well.