Review of Bad Lieutenant (1992) by David P — 21 May 2008

I've had this DVD kicking around for awhile now, and I finally sat down and watched it. What intrigued me about this movie was not only its religious themes, but how Abel Ferrara refuses to make Keitel's character blatantly redemptive or "Christ-like" the way Hollywood generally likes to paint their flawed protagonists. Keitel does the right thing in the end (or does he?), but it isn't because he's seen the light, it's because he knows his time is short and he's trying to do what will hopefully put him square with the powers that be the way people do when they think death is near, by trying to make deals with God or at least fall at his feet when hope is gone. Is he a redemptive character? Maybe. You'll have to see the film and judge for yourself.

Much of the film is spent watching Keitel be a pitiful misanthropic douchebag. We get to see him inhale almost every drug under the sun in multiple dubious locations, watch couples have sex while he chugs liquor from the bottle, calls Jesus names, jerk off while a young girl he pulled over simulates fellatio...the list goes on. The only threads tying the film together are his losing bets on the World Series (The Mets vs. The Dodgers) and the investigation of the brutal rape of a nun (which gets the Most Unpleasant Rape Scene of the Nineties Award in my book, I covered my eyes through most of it), with both of those story arcs intersecting through him.

Overall I was very taken by this movie. I've notice that Abel Ferrara, in the films of his I've seen anyway, is more concerned with character than story, which is very refreshing in a world where films only contain scenes to either a) move the plot forward or b) contain a set-piece that makes you go "gee-whiz!" This movie took its time, and I liked that. I just wish that Ferrara would have spent a little less time showing us stuff like Keitel smoking crack out of tin-foil and spent a little more time showing how his raging substance abuse problems, along with his violent nature, affected him at home. We see that he has lots of kids under his family's roof, I wanted to know a bit more about his relationship with the folks at home, as it's barely touched on.

I'm sure most of you have heard by now that this movie is being remade by Werner Herzog, with Nicholas Cage in the Harvey Keitel role. While I'm sick of Nic Cage hamming it up in bad remakes of good films, the Herzog factor I find intriguing. Then again, Neil LaBute is a perfectly good director, and look at how his Nic Cage version of The Wicker Man turned out. We'll see.