“Bad Lieutenant”
Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film “Bad Lieutenant” is an intensely focused character study. It takes place over a little less than a week and thru nearly every frame of the film we are drawn into the world of the Lieutenant, masterly portrayed by Harvey Keitel. The Lieutenant is not a normal cop, or at least I hope not. He starts his day off by snorting some cocaine after dropping his kids off at school. He sells, buys, and steals drugs from crime scenes so clumsily you can’t help but wonder how he has made it this far. But then, that’s not fair, because these days aren’t exactly normal days in the life of the Lieutenant but ones of desperation, growing with each successive high stakes wager he makes on a baseball playoff series between the Dodgers and the Mets (there is a nice background to the film played out thru this series both on television and the radio, it is the voice of sports talk radio that starts the film and puts us rather nicely into a time, place, and mood).
The Lieutenant is not a good man. As he grows more desperate, he uses and abuses drugs and alcohol more and more. Every step of the way is debauchery and sin, spending time with women who certainly aren’t his wife (I can’t figure out if we ever see her, but he certainly doesn’t seem to go home at night.) engaged in sex, drugs, and, well, you know. In church he communicates with his bookie. As a cop, he engages in a shockingly gross abuse of power when he pulls over two young females who are out on a joy ride in their father’s car.
But then there is the vicious rape of a nun. At first, this has little to no effect on the Lieutenant; he says that all sorts of people are raped and bad mouths the church for putting out a 50,000 dollar reward. Then he is hanging around the crime scene-the church-snooping around for clues or suspects. Is he there because of his conscience or because of his rapidly growing debt which the 50,000 dollar reward could alleviate? His bookie tells him he is in with some serious people who don’t care if he is a cop. The Lieutenant parlays his losses and other cops winnings.
“Bad Lieutenant” is an intense film, with scenes of startlingly good acting on the part of Keitel, risky scenes that bare all emotionally and physically, the kind of scenes that Keitel has made a habit of nailing, and for that we have a worthy film. It is also a grand example of a gritty independent film, shot quick and on the cheap, noteworthy for its lack of flash and lengthy shots that leave the actors no room to hide behind music and editing. And while in many ways it succeeds-we are drawn into and astonished by the Lieutenants world, his character does have an arc and the film does have its surprises-this is not a great film. Because even though the Lieutenant eventually shows humanity, for me it is too late and too unmotivated. There are a number of symbolic or religious scenes, flashes of the crucifixion and of Jesus, that to me are so clumsily staged that they lose their power.
I once saw Martin Scorsese on “Inside the actor’s studio” and he named “Bad Lieutenant” as one of the very best and overlooked films of the 1990’s. I can see why he liked it; an intensely New York character study about a dark, perhaps redeemable character-it must have reminded him of his own “Taxi Driver” and with a powerhouse performance by Harvey Keitel and themes of struggling with Catholicism, I still can’t blame him, but for me it remains an interesting film, perhaps even a good one, but not one with enough originality, follow thru, or sympathy for the Bad Lieutenant, to be a great one.
Story: B This is a bad man on the verge of something even worse, light on plot, heavy on character study.
Acting: A Keitel is the focus and he shines.
Visuals: B- Very gritty, independent, but perhaps showing it’s cost at times.
Originality/Innovation: C+ Dedicated to it’s intensity, but a New York cop character study has been done.
Enjoyability Grade: B Sometimes hard to watch, but good filmmaking and great acting.
Overall Grade: B- A good, if not disturbing film, not great, it shows guts though.
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