badlieutenant

This lieutenant is one bad dude. Gambling is his passion , drugs are his curse. When he's not losing money on his bets , he's smoking crack and banging smack like there's no tomorrow... and from the very beginning you feel that there really isn't. His job opens the door for his addiction , and his addiction alienates him from his family and his job. He mixes with pushers and whores - only his badge sets him apart from the criminal elements he's supposed to fight. But he is already far beyond the point of distinguishing between right and wrong. On a crime scene , he just takes a quick look at the tits of a shoot-out victim and then pays all his attention to talking his buddy police officers into placing high bets on baseball games.

Naturally , he's out of luck. The debt collectors demand their money and tighten the screws on him , which drives him only deeper into a blurry haze of drugs , and drug-fueled sex. When he learns of a nun who was raped by two men , the Lieutenant pulls himself together only as much as his unhealthy condition allows him to. But again his reasons are purely selfish , as a reward of $50 000 is offered for the rapists. He finds the young girl praying in a church , and asks her about the deed. Much to his horror the nun has already forgiven her violators and refuses to expose them. Being left alone in the church the Lieutenant finally feels the walls closing in on him. On the verge of a total breakdown he has a vision in which Jesus Christ appears before him. In painfully long moments the Lieutenant curses him , calls him a fuck , and begs him for help. As it turns out , the person he envisioned as Jesus is a bum who leads him to the rapists.

The Lieutenant apprehends the two young Latinos in their flat. But instead of arresting them he lights and smokes a crack pipe with the boys. Afterwards he drives them to the bus station, hands them his last couple of thousand dollars and tells them in tears not to ever come back to this town. The Lieutenant drives to where he's supposed to meet the debt collectors . A car drives by and the Lieutenant is shot to death. Credits roll.

Bad Lieutenant is not a pretty film . On the contrary , it is ugly , repulsive, and disorientating... on purpose. Like his earlier features , Ferrara blurs the thin line that sets good and evil apart. A mobster like Frank White in King of New York uses his drug money to maintain a hospital , and a man of the law like the Lieutenant drowns in the mess his life has become.

Harvey Keitel brilliantly embodies Ferrara's ambiguous attitude towards the catholic church and questions the belief that Jesus took the blame for him and died on the cross for our sins. More than once Ferrara asks if a crime like raping a young and innocent girl can be forgiven and if an utterly filthy character like the Lieutenant can really be our saviour.

As you can see , this is really heavy stuff . I believe that only people who were born and raised in a catholic environment can really relate to a story like this . For a godless schmuck like me whose upbringing was founded on a solid basis of agnosticism , it is not easy to fully understand Ferrara's criticism. But that doesn't really matter as there is another reason that makes Bad Lieutenant enjoyable ( sorry , I can't think of a better term). I'm talking about the one man show that Harvey Keitel pulls off here. This is method acting taken to the extremes. It's a really mindblowing experience to follow Keitel on his inevitable way down the drain. Granted , the snails pace that the film moves on and the many , many scenes of drug abuse ( and the incredible and long sequence in which Keitel jerks off in front of two teenage girls ) don't make Bad Lieutenant a party tape or a film you'd watch with your girlfriend as foreplay. I say watch it nonetheless.