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#259 - Bad Lieutenant
Abel Ferrara, 1992
Follows a corrupt police lieutenant as he tries to feed his various addictions and figure out a way to pay off his massive gambling debts while also trying to catch a pair of rapists.
Having seen and disliked Ferrara's previous film, King of New York (seriously, how does a film about Christopher Walken as a crime boss end up being so boring?), I was admittedly skeptical about watching Bad Lieutenant. I'd heard bits and pieces about it that did not make it sound like a pleasant viewing experience in any case, but I figured that I could at least have faith in Harvey Keitel's ability as an actor to carry the film - in essence, that is what keeps Bad Lieutenant from being truly terrible. As the titular lieutenant (who is never named in-story), Keitel lives up to the "bad" part of the film's title as he spends much of the film engaging in substance abuse and the occasional act of sexual deviancy (the film's most notorious scene is probably the one where Keitel sexually harasses a pair of female joy-riders). In the interest of keeping things sufficiently ambiguous, Keitel is also shown as a relatively devout Catholic family man. There are two main plot threads that lend order to the chaos of Keitel's more degenerate behaviour - his compulsive gambling on the World Series sending him further into depth with a crime organisation and a case involving a nun who has been gang-raped, prompting the church to offer a $50,000 reward for justice.
Unfortunately, for the first two thirds of the film the film basically amounts to some largely uninteresting build-up on those two plot threads - the plot regarding the rape case does prompt a morally grey situation about the Church's hypocrisy, while the plot about Keitel's gambling is dull as dishwater (of all the sports for him to bet on, you had to go with baseball?). To compensate, the film is peppered with garish, provocative imagery. Whether it's a naked Keitel blubbering during a drug-addled sexual encounter or a rape scene being intercut with footage of Jesus screaming while being crucified, the images are distinct but I'd be hard-pressed to call them effective. It only starts to get truly interesting during the last twenty or thirty minutes as pressure builds up on Keitel and truly tests him as a person - the last cathedral scene is easily the best in the film and really shows that, despite the generally underwritten quality of the film and Keitel's character, Keitel himself truly throws himself into the role at the best possible moment. The film reaches a conclusion that does sort of make sense given the themes presented throughout the film, but it's debatable as to whether or not it actually works even in a film like this. As a result, Bad Lieutenant does end up feeling a bit too ridiculous and not in a good way. It's lurid, pulpy, hard to take seriously, and most importantly it wastes a good performance from Keitel.
Abel Ferrara, 1992
Follows a corrupt police lieutenant as he tries to feed his various addictions and figure out a way to pay off his massive gambling debts while also trying to catch a pair of rapists.
Having seen and disliked Ferrara's previous film, King of New York (seriously, how does a film about Christopher Walken as a crime boss end up being so boring?), I was admittedly skeptical about watching Bad Lieutenant. I'd heard bits and pieces about it that did not make it sound like a pleasant viewing experience in any case, but I figured that I could at least have faith in Harvey Keitel's ability as an actor to carry the film - in essence, that is what keeps Bad Lieutenant from being truly terrible. As the titular lieutenant (who is never named in-story), Keitel lives up to the "bad" part of the film's title as he spends much of the film engaging in substance abuse and the occasional act of sexual deviancy (the film's most notorious scene is probably the one where Keitel sexually harasses a pair of female joy-riders). In the interest of keeping things sufficiently ambiguous, Keitel is also shown as a relatively devout Catholic family man. There are two main plot threads that lend order to the chaos of Keitel's more degenerate behaviour - his compulsive gambling on the World Series sending him further into depth with a crime organisation and a case involving a nun who has been gang-raped, prompting the church to offer a $50,000 reward for justice.
Unfortunately, for the first two thirds of the film the film basically amounts to some largely uninteresting build-up on those two plot threads - the plot regarding the rape case does prompt a morally grey situation about the Church's hypocrisy, while the plot about Keitel's gambling is dull as dishwater (of all the sports for him to bet on, you had to go with baseball?). To compensate, the film is peppered with garish, provocative imagery. Whether it's a naked Keitel blubbering during a drug-addled sexual encounter or a rape scene being intercut with footage of Jesus screaming while being crucified, the images are distinct but I'd be hard-pressed to call them effective. It only starts to get truly interesting during the last twenty or thirty minutes as pressure builds up on Keitel and truly tests him as a person - the last cathedral scene is easily the best in the film and really shows that, despite the generally underwritten quality of the film and Keitel's character, Keitel himself truly throws himself into the role at the best possible moment. The film reaches a conclusion that does sort of make sense given the themes presented throughout the film, but it's debatable as to whether or not it actually works even in a film like this. As a result, Bad Lieutenant does end up feeling a bit too ridiculous and not in a good way. It's lurid, pulpy, hard to take seriously, and most importantly it wastes a good performance from Keitel.