Review of Bad Lieutenant (1992) by Aaron M — 11 Jun 2008

It's a decent flick for the most part. Keitel is a pretty good actor, there's only a few scenes where he sort of falters-mostly the crying scenes-for the most part though, this film is pretty messed up ad is a rough and harsh look at a messed up cop who's a drug abuser, sexual deviant, and a habitual gambler. Some of the stuff I didn't like was the portrayal of the family. They were barely in the movie, maybe a total of 2 minutes altogether and they were simply not needed. It was just another thing tacked on to say that Keitel was a bad lieutenant and it just didn't work for me. Another thing I didn't like-and this might be spoilerish so if you don't like spoilers-turn away now-is that Harvey Keitel's character doesn't go through enough character development to arrive at wanting redemption in the very end. The entire film he's a bad guy. There's even a scene where someone makes mention that the guy he's making bets with will blow up his house with his family and sons and daughters inside...and he says he doesn't care-he'll pay them 10,000 dollars for the trouble of doing it. This is a guy who steals 500 dollars from two hoodlums in a chinese man's store that they stole it from and he does it right in front of the man's daughter. This is a guy who masturbates in the city street to two fifteen year old girls that he just pulled over and is making one show him his ass and the other show him how she would suck a man's cock. Nowhere in this film-and there's more scenes of him doing a lot of bad stuff obviously-is there any hint that this man wants to be saved. When he cries during one scene and sticks his arms out while standing naked-I attributed that to the fact that he's been drinking, doing coke, doing crack, doing heroin, and smoking pot all in the same freakin' night. Yes, that will fuck you up. So at the very end of the film he wants redemption and he lets the two nun rapists go because the nun forgave them and this is after Jesus helps him find the criminals. I feel that Ferrara wanted to play things safe because the entire film is a big fuck you to religion and catholicism and then the very end is a big-please Jesus, save me, help me solve this case and then Jesus saves Keitel's character and presumably forgives him.

Another problem I had was the crack dealer's family. Keitel doesn't care about his family, but he cares about the crack dealer's family? Why? It's never gone into. They give him $30,000 to bet on a Dodgers vs. Mets game though and is it to bet for himself, are they just giving him the money? No, they're not. It's to bet for them. The crack dealer says don't waste our money and Keitel promises the mother that the Dodgers will win the series. I think instead of the religious theme, I'd have kept with the world series theme. It made more sense since he kept losing and in his life he kept losing-but the religious theme I feel was tacked on so that Ferrara could have a "nice" ending.

Another thing I didn't like was the very, very end. It's left up in the air who killed Keitel. There's the mob hit men theory. The problem with this is that if it was the mob then that would mean that they had a hit out for him already and had been following him because it seems pretty random happenstance that they'd just fall upon his car in the crowded New York streets and then do a drive by. There's also the theory that it was just random people (and I'll add in by divine intervention they kill him) because how do they know that there is a cop inside that car? Keitel doesn't wear a badge. He dresses in a casual suit like most of the people in New York (in the film) and he drives a casual car like most of the cars found in New York. How could two random criminals point him out and say he's a cop when they don't even know if he's a cop. Are they Jesus' hit men? Who knows. SPOILER END.

If you like Harvey Keitel this is an impressive film to add to his resume, but for the most part it's riddled with scenes that don't work making this film look like a big piece of Swiss Cheese with several small holes littered throughout its white smelliness. 3 stars, out of 5.