Bad Lieutenant
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Movie Reviews of Bad Lieutenant
Movie Review: How can you forgive that...
Summary: 5 Stars
I had heard, by word of mouth over the years, that "Bad Lieutenant" was truly extraordinary, but nothing could really prepare me for the sheer visceral impact of the film, or the electrifying, career best performance, given by Harvey Keitel, in fact I watched the film 3 days ago, and have deliberately waited `til now to write this review. After much thought I have to say that "Bad Lieutenant" really is a monstrous train-wreck of a movie, but what keeps you watching, utterly mesmerized, unable to look away for an instant, is Keitel's performance as the titular character. He's never given a name in the film, or even in the credits, he's just the "Lieutenant," and "Bad?" "Bad" doesn't even begin to describe this guy, as the front of the DVD case puts it, "Gambler. Thief. Junkie. Killer. Cop."
After surviving on the mean streets of New York for 20 years, he has seen, and pretty well done, it all; the "Lieutenant" is a man who exists in a nihilistic Hell of his own making, and we watch as he roars headlong towards his own destruction, along the way, plumbing the very depths of abject human depravity.
A lapsed Catholic, he is still wracked by guilt for the truly awful deeds he commits, whether it's doing and/or selling drugs, booze, sex, gambling, thieving, killing, the "Lieutenant" is a soul in torment. Unable to find a way out, he is sinking deeper and deeper into a morass of yet MORE drugs, MORE booze, MORE bets he can't cover, and more, meaningless, cold, emotionless, and depraved, sexual acts.
Yet somewhere deep inside this blasted shell of a man, there still exists a spark of humanity, so lost in the wretched, savage squalor of his life, that even HE doesn't know it's there. Then one day he becomes involved in the investigation of a crime that shocks even him... the brutal rape of a Catholic nun. Initially coldly dismissive of what the young woman had been through, he listens in on her conversations with her superiors and is shocked to his core to discover that even though her bruises are still fresh, she has already forgiven her attackers. She knows their names but won't pass them on to the police.
The "Lieutenant" can barely comprehend how can such a thing can be, how can she forgive such a terrible act... such a terrible sin? If she can forgive so much, then maybe, just maybe, he himself can find some kind of redemption, maybe someone - God? - can forgive him HIS sins. After his confrontation with the nun, howling out his characters pain, and anger, and hurt, and fear, Harvey Keitel gives the most searingly honest, desperate, and emotionally raw performance of his career.
Bleak, brutal, depraved, and honest, are some of the words that I would use to describe this film, which is NOT easy to watch, especially this NC-17 version, but it's a film that SHOULD be watched by anyone who is serious about Cinema as an art form. Between them, Ferrera and Keitel have produced an extraordinary cinematic experience, unbending and uncompromising in its exploration of the human condition, powerful and unforgiving, it forces you to actually THINK about the subject matter, and to face the rotten darkness in the heart of this particular human soul.
I would like to end this review with a bit of trivia concerning Keitel's performance. Regardless of whether you love this film or hate it - like "2001," this film seems to generate extreme reactions - no one can argue about the power, and sheer gut-wrenching truthfulness, of Keitel's performance. Depending on exactly when the film was released, Keitel would have been eligible for a shot at either the '92 or '93 Oscar for Best Actor. So who won? Well, I looked it up, and Keitel "lost" to, either, Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman" in '92, or, God help us, Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia" in '93! Next time I find myself getting even mildly curious about who's taking home one of the gold statuettes, this little bit of trivia will kind-of put the whole tawdry circus into perspective!
Movie Review: The Moaning Man
Summary: 5 Stars
Only in Clint Eastwood's world will you find redemption caught up in a hail of bullets and vigilante violence but here Abel Ferrara gives us a true rendition of sheer manic salvation that in intertwined with hate, wrongfulness, drugs, paranoia, rape, gambling and police corruption.Harvey Keitel's performance as a crooked cop hanging together by a withering thread is second to none for its type. You have not seen anything like it before nor will you ever again. It is a role he was born to play and a role he will be remembered for. No, Keitel will not be remembered for his part in Reservoir Dogs or Taxi Driver... he will be recalled as that Brooklyn cop on the edge of a bottomless pit of insanity in Bad Lieutenant.
Ferrara has somehow managed to make a film that is so shocking and twisted and yet at the same time a powerhouse of moral values that it ascends its exploitation material by the time the closing credits begin to roll. From the opening scene Keitel is out and about involving himself in every kind of debauchery from an assortment of drugs and alcohol to performing himself in front of a very scared group of teens that he has just pulled over in their "borrowed" car for having a broken taillight. In another scene he visits the location of a crime and does little more than just look at the victim's breasts. As pounds of crack cocaine fall from under his vest in front of his fellow detectives, Keitel is on a losing streak from start to finish. When coupled with his exhausting gambling debt that triples with every baseball fixture that fails him you know that it just can not get much worse... but somehow Ferrara manages to do just that and the many levels Keitel falls too are beyond imagination.
The premise is horrific. As a crooked cop he must investigate the case of a raped nun who refuses to tell the police about her violent, and graphic, assault or to identify the perpetrators. She says that she forgives them but Keitel can not connect with this or understand it. He looses sleep over it and continues on his personal decent into hell. As his world is torn about him - a self-inflicted venture with no one else to blame for it but himself - Keitel can only find a last glimmer of hope in the resolve of the nun's case.
This is cinema at its most harrowing and psychological. You can not fault Keitel's performance here for a moment. This is the kind of film that you do not feel good about watching but you are damn glad that you did. Critics tout this as one of the best Tour-de-force movies ever.
Movie Review: To the depths of hell and clawing his way out
Summary: 5 Stars
Whisper his name. Harvey Keitel. Shout his name. Harvey Keitel. No matter. He did not win any awards for this role, this damnation, this damned man, a police detective in "Bad Lieutenant."
There's a song, "Bad to the Bone," which might sum up the detective, or it might not be strong enough because Harvey Keitel's character is bad to the bone and then some. He lives as a family man, but on the edge, clearly not part of this family, a stuffed man, stuffed with aloneness, stuffed with horrors of his own making. Director Abel Ferrara's filming technique extends this isolation by making the movie look like a docudrama. Filmed on location. No takes. Shoot as is. Keep the cameras rolling.
He starts the day clean as he drops his two sons off at school. During the course of the day he investigates two vicious murders, a store theft he turns to his advantage by keeping the stolen money, does drugs with a stoned out, emaciated redhead, and engages in a menage-a-trois with two women. During this scene he evens out the equal rights debate for male actors to engage in full frontal nudity. Yes, he does. Then he gets his life-defining case--the vicious rape of a young nun by two local petty drug dealers.
Harvey Keitel has spent the day engaged in personal encounters with, well, let's name it, sins of the flesh, of the soul. He sees the nun several times over the next few days, trying to understand what happened to her. When she tells him with her own mouth that she forgives the two men and will not identify them or name them, but only forgives them, he has a major crisis of conscience.
One reviewer calls this film a major religious movie, and, indeed, it becomes so. These are scenes to cherish for their truthful beauty, for their naked exposure of a soul in dire peril. Harvey Keitel produces a keening for his soul the like which will make your hair stand on end. The following scenes need to be seen and not read.
What transpires resonants with the viewer as the viewer comes to understand the moment's eternal meaning. No more will I say.
Note: This movie is rated NC-17 and is not for the squeamish.
Movie Review: He's a bad cop and out of control. But there is redemption.
Summary: 5 Stars
In this 1992 film Harvey Keitel is cast in the role of a bad cop. He's a addicted to cocaine, abuses power and is at the bottom of a downward moral decline. He shows us his weaknesses and bares his soul and we hate the acts he does but also see a tortured man who is out of control in every way. When another cop is about to arrest some thieves, Keitel sends the other cop away, takes their money and then lets the thieves go. He gets his payoffs in cocaine from drug dealers. He uses his police power to force some teenage girls to satisfy his sick needs. And he is constantly drinking to counteract his cocaine high. It's rather surprising, but not unbelievable, that he still lives with his family and four children but he has long since given up any attempt at reconciling to a middle-class life. And, to top it off, against the background of the World Series, he is way over his head in gambling debts.
Then he is brought into a case where a young nun is brutally violated. She knows the two men who have committed the terrible act but refuses to name them to the police. "I have already forgiven them," she says. This throws Keitel into a moral and spiritual quandary, and how he resolves it might be shocking to some but is understandable, given his character.
This is perhaps Harvey Keitel's finest performance. I felt his humanity in spite of all his nasty acts. Underneath it all was a very troubled human being. Wisely, the screenwriter didn't give him a name. We just think of him as the bad cop. And also, wisely, we don't get any back story. I had been actually waiting for it. I wanted to know the reason that would make a man act this way. But my curiously was never satisfied. Instead, I was thrown into the man's current moral dilemma. The result was a deeply disturbing journey into the depths of depravity and redemption. I applaud the filmmakers, as well the director Abel Ferrera, who, with the help of Zoe Lund, also wrote the screenplay. It took a lot of courage to bring this story to the screen. Highly recommended.
Movie Review: Bravado filmmaking at it's finest!
Summary: 5 Stars
As tough as any review might seem, behind this trainwreck of a movie lies one of the most important pieces of work in bravado film history. Often compared with Taxi driver, Abel Ferrara 1992 effort is a disturbing hell of a ride from title to end credits. I consider myself lucky for having the stomach, the patience and the strengh to watch it repeatedly and still being able to absorb it without passing out with the high ammount of ultra disturbing material this film dares to offer...and I still enjoy it very much. Drugs, death, addiction...good lord...you should be asking yourself... why should I watch a piece of junk like this? this is no junk at all, this is a lesson too important! This film is strong, powerful, realistic, impressive, daring and bold in every aspect, and it does have the power to disturb and shock hundreds of thousands of viewers...and I believe that's a beauty! This is a film where no one's innocent, everyone is evil and redemption is the only cure. I hate doing reviews cuz films should speak for themselves, but all I have to say is that Harvey Keitel's bold self destructive and out of this world performance should be considered as the most viceral, dramatic, original and impressive charaterization of the 90's. This is his best performence ever!!! This guy showed the world that he can play anything you throw at him, no matter how difficult or dihumanizing it might be, he's the guy to pull it off brilliantly!. I can keep on writing for hours and hours about his impressive and jawbraking job on this movie but I wont...all I have to say is that if it wasn't for him, Bad Lieutenat wouldn't have 90% of its raw power...this guy is a class A actor all the way. And this also makes Abel Ferrara one of the most amazing directors alive...this movie is incredible!Be prepared for this highgly recommended film that should go down in history as the most viceral and daring film of the 90's. But be warmed, this film has the power to bring everybody down!. I haven't watch a film like this again!