Bad Lieutenant
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Movie Reviews of Bad Lieutenant
Movie Review: Too Bad for Harvey Keitel.
Summary: 2 Stars
Viewed: 7/03, 8/06
Rate: 4
8/06: While I commend Harvey Keitel for his uninhibited performance, there is nothing special about his performance. Bad Lieutenant fails because it's neither interesting nor meaningful. In short, it was a bland picture that went nowhere. It didn't say anything significant for me, and I wanted to see something poignant about the character, but it's not there. Instead, I am being shown redundantly his lifestyle through drug use, some sex, and plenty of World Series baseball talk while the life of Keitel's character comes spiraling downward. Do I care? That's the question. And that's the question that killed Bad Lieutenant. Looking at his performance, Harvey Keitel made a travesty out of himself because his character doesn't look real, doesn't look soulful, and doesn't look humane. Rather, I see this actor who is pretending. On the other hand, Bad Lieutenant is unique for one thing: it's an unrestrained picture. That's as far as it gets. Abel Ferrara, who has already disappointed me with King of New York, does it again for me through Bad Lieutenant. Before being a serious filmmaker, Abel Ferrara must develop his characters for us to care about. After that part is done, then train the actors to become the characters, not actors already being themselves. Bad Lieutenant is a good example of that while King of New York is a good example of an undeveloped picture.
Movie Review: Harvey must have needed to pay the bills to take on this one
Summary: 2 Stars
I believe this is [the] bottom of the barrel performance of Keitel's life. The story was stilted, disjointed and incoherent. Maybe it was meant to be that way, but it was a dumb movie, altogether. I won't waste my time detailing the premise of the story, but there are parts that will make you laugh out loud - the car scene with the two young girls that Keitel "gets his rocks off" (literally), that's absolutely hilarious. I really don't feel that this movie was meant to be serious, because it was too far out there. It's possible that the drug-induced scenes were real, because Harvey Keitel had to have been on drugs to perform the way he did in this film. The Director must've been on drugs when he made this movie....honestly.Movie Review: Waste of Time
Summary: 2 Stars
This boring and uneventful film is so bad after I heard the 'great' reviews, how many times is one suckered into believing that independent films can all be good? Well, there's plenty of stinkers in the lot! Don't get this unless you are a depraved sicko who likes to watch Keital in his B-day suit, a total artless flick.
Movie Review: I'm sorry, Lord. I've done so many bad things.
Summary: 1 Stars
Harvey Keitel plays a Lieutenant who is heavily into drugs, sex, and gambling. He has no name, and that is for a reason. This film wants to show the animosity of the character. It wants to create a sense that Keitel is playing an "everyman". Not necessarily a cop with a specific name, but anyone...almost showing us that this type of corruption happens in the least expected places, by the least expected people. The film opens with Keitel taking his children to school. We are disillusioned by the idea, that he has strong family values, perhaps he isn't the "bad" cop that everyone is expecting. After 10 minutes into the film, that idea changes dramatically. We see him trying to steal drugs out of a car, looking at the breasts of a shot girl, by taking money from a grocery store owner, and finally by doing mass amounts of cocaine and heroine. After about thirty minutes of no story line, just graphic sex and drug use, we are pushed into yet another horrifying scene. This is supposed to be the "plot" of the film. An inexplicable act of violence takes place that makes Keitel reconsider his chosen path of life. His world gets changed all around as he tries to hunt down the criminals of this case, and also dramatically use religion to look back at his soul. Can both these criminals and Keitel be saved?
Too much character development can hurt or help a film. In this case, it hurt it. With very small amounts of dialogue, but extra elongated drug scenes, we are forced to have the impression that Keitel is a bad cop. Alright, after five minutes I get it...but why show more? Why take about three-fourths of the film to show all of the evil deeds that this Lieutenant is capable of doing? This could have been a very dark and disturbing film, but instead it fell into the problem that "The Deer Hunter" had. The director chose to use the "leave the camera running" technique. This means, that he thinks that the true nature of the character will come out the longer that he leaves the camera running during a scene. This can be true in some instances, but for this film it did not. I understood that he was a corrupt cop, I mean, I got that much from the title. Tell me more...why was he a bad cop? This might seem like a small point, but it would have helped when trying to get into the mindset of the character.
I felt that the director left too much up for the viewer to assume. For the two big drug scenes, there were some random people that Keitel was with, and I had no clue who they were. Develop these smaller characters too, this will allow you to build a believable world for the main character. If you don't do this, then when your "big" central moment does occur the viewer will not be lost. When Keitel begins looking back at his own life actions, he begins to worry that he doesn't know what to do to make things right, or how to do "the right thing". For too long he has been bending the rules, and living the lifestyle that he has become accustomed to...that when he wants to change his life, he doesn't know how to. BUT I will tell you this that by doing more drugs and by allowing crime to continue does not push him in the right direction.
Overall, there wasn't enough development of Keitel's character to justify being shocked by this movie. I remember very clearly the last thought running through my mind when the credits rolled, it was..."Thank God this film is over....".
Grade: * out of *****
Movie Review: Sorry people, the Lieutenant isn't the only thing bad here. It's a bad film. A really, really bad film!
Summary: 1 Stars
I got a chance to see this movie recently on IFC (Independent Film Channel). I was so intrigued by the concept of the plot and have found over the years that almost anything Harvey Keitel is in is well worth watching. Unfortunately, this film wasn't one of them. The problem here is not the plot or the acting. It's the film maker. Period. My impression after watching this was that the director must have been a first year film student who was trying every trick he heard in class without really understanding how it impacts up on the screen.
Harvey Keitel plays a cop who's scraping bottom. He loses consistantly to the bookies and now is up to his ears in gambling debt. Add to that he's a drug addict and uses his position as a detective to, shall we say, take advantage of underage girls. Basically, he has no redeeming qualities. When a nun is brutally raped the case falls into his lap and as he investigates crime he begins to slowly yearn for a redemption that he thought was beyond his reach.
Sounds like a good plot, right? Well it is, on paper. The possibilities here are just endless. But from concept-to-filming something went very wrong. More and more, as you watch the plot becomes secondary. Director Abel Ferrara throws bad scene after bad scene at a wall, hoping it will stick, and very few do. Two examples of a couple of scenes that really stand out to me as horrible film making: The first, when the nun is being attacked we are treated to a series of quick shots with the camera, first of the nun as she is being raped, then cut quickly to a icon of Christ, then back to the nun as she is screaming, then back to Christ, then back....well you get the idea. I'm assuming that this was suppose be an analogy that the nun's rape was like the crucifixion of the Savior. Only, it's really a bad analogy. And the quickness of the cuts may have been done to try and build the tempo of the scene but instead was just plain annoying.
But the worst scene, by far, was the full frontal nudity of Keitel. For two reasons: 1) with apologies to the actor, it's just not a pleasent sight. I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing that image. But more importantly: 2) Keitel's nudity really had no reason to be included in this scene. None. It did not, in any way, advance the plot of the film. This specific scene shows him on a drug-induced high and we see him swaying back and forth in this trance. OK, showing him high does advance the movie but the nudity wasn't necessary to do that. It was like the director was saying, "Hey look what I got Harvey Keitel to do." To be honest I'm not a big fan of full frontal nudity, in most cases I think it cheapens the scene, but can at least understand it IF THERE IS A PURPOSE TO IT. Here there isn't. It was a waste of time and film and made a bad film watching experience even worse.
Again, this is a bad film. If it were possible to give it zero stars then I would have. I wouldn't recommend this to any one.