Dear Harvey Keitel,there are some films which are elevated to another level by the actors. In fact, John Huston remarked that "Half of directing is casting the right actors." Bad Lieutenant might have ended up an average film if a lesser actor had played the lead role. But as one of the greatest wasters in movie history, you have inspired fans to compare the film to Taxi Driver. The long tracking shots interwoven with point of view shots and real life locations wouldn't have amounted to much if it wasn't for your performance, Harvey. Frankly, there aren't that many memorable dialogs. I did not enjoy the arty-farty sex scenes. And parts of the movie were uninspired. Especially your character forgiving those two rapists in the end. But there is hardly a scene where you aren't at your very best, Harvey. I think Terry Zwigoff did a better job with this film's remake - Bad Santa (2003) than Abel Ferrera.Best Regards, Pimpin.(8/10)

One thing I will say about "Bad Lieutenant" is that it was cool to see the movie's events play out during the Mets/Dodgers playoff series. Between that and the bets being placed on the games, it's not everyday you see baseball so woven into the fabric of a non-sports movie. It's nice.Along with that, I'll definitely say that Harvey Keitel's performance is unequivocally the reason to see this movie. He's unhinged, way off-course, on the raggedy edge. And the movie's title is an understatement. He's straight-up vile, a vigilante cop that dabbles in your seedier vices, pilfers money from robbery scenes and extorts underage girls to get off. He's something else. And my burning question the entire time was "Why?". Why is he so bad? Too many years on the street, too many divorces? But we're not given that information. He's just bad . . . because.But his misdeeds are so outlandish that the lurid and shocking reputation this movie has attained just gives way to over-the-top. By the time he's weeping at the feet of Jesus, it's absurd. I don't think laughs are what Abel Ferrara was going for with that scene. I know this movie's about redemption (in the Catholic sense), but there's nothing to feel for this guy. He's cardboard.5/10

The 1992 film Bad Lieutenant was and still is a very controversial film that easily divides film fans and critics.Harvey Keitel stars as the Lieutenant in question, a police detective who is addicted to hard drugs, has sex with prostitutes and has heavy gambling debts. He attempts to get out of debt by betting more money on the World Series Games between the New York Mets and L.A. Dodgers, falling into a deeper void of drugs as he investigates the brutal rape of a nun (Frankie Thorn), a nun who is willing to forgive her attackers.Bad Lieutenant is a very dark, bleak film, centred around an excellent performance by Keitel. Keitel and his character goes through the ringer as the Lieutenant succumb to his drug addiction, taking its toll on him physically and mental. The Lieutenant goes through hell and we see him get more and more wound out during the film as he loses grit.Director Abel Ferrara makes a very grimy film, having a 70s look to it Sepico and Taxi Driver. The film is set in the roughest, run down areas of New York City and the city is made to be a cesspool of a place which is crime filled where people are gather round crime scenes. This is amplified by the style of direction, using plenty of wide shots and long takes, letting scenes play to their shocking conclusions and giving the actors mostly uninterrupted performances.Bad Lieutenant is very much an art house film about the decline of a man in a world of sin, embarking on sin and someone willing to forgive the people who did the most horrific act possible. It is a brutal, unpleasant work and Ferrara takes very surreal turns with his use of Catholic iconography.Bad Lieutenant is deserving of its controversial status with its violence, sex and it notorious rape scene. But it a interesting art house film as we explore one corrupt cop going into the depth of his own personal hell.

This film was designed to have a lot of impact, and it does. It makes you want to vomit--I don't mean that in a bad way, exactly.... It starts with a recording of a NYC sports talk-show host venting rage at how the Mets will throw the Series, and that stupid rage is the only explanation given for Hervey Keitel's beyond-damnation cop. Keitel's character fits the old stereotype of NYC cops--before their Stop & Frisk effectiveness--perfectly. He alternates between doped-up-but-alert, and doped-to-the-gills. (SPOILERS COMING) In the latter frame of mind, he blearily investigates a nun-rape crime, hoping to collect $50,000, to help pay off gambling debts. After eavesdropping on the nun refusing to name her assailants (kids she knows) to her confessor, he decides to persuade her to tell him their names using the standard guilt trips, but she refuses--she says she forgives them. After she runs away, he sinks howling to his knees, hallucinates the incarnate Christ and 'repents' that he didn't mean to be bad, just has a weak will. Miraculously, the perp identities are given to him; he groggily shows mercy rather than collect the reward; and he gets gunned down in the predictable end to the film.Good film??? On the plus side, Keitel is cast perfectly, and the film is striking. Minus: I laughed pretty often at how pointlessly over-the-top it was, Keitel's performance and everything else. He displays only two expressions the whole film: stolid and dopey. There are limits to how much acting skill you can show playing a doped-up character--almost as bad as playing a corpse. There's no motivation for his character, especially the mercy he shows at the end--there couldn't be. No other actor has a part with more than one dimension. Midway through the film, Keitel stops two young (?) women from New Jersey and harasses them crudely; the women claim to be teenagers driving without their father's permission but look like 30-year-old whores (and one of them plays a "whore who knows what's coming" pretty well; the other is just silly). The whole episode is silly--Keitel is much less brutal than seasoned filmgoers will expect, for no apparent reason. But the rest of the film compensates for this mild segment by rehashing crudities without limit or purpose.Why give it even a 6? I'm not sure--craven conformity to other reviewers? It is a sort of archetype of scumbucketry. I think you have to look at the film sardonically, as a scornful portrayal of (Catholic) faith, repentance, and resolve to do good. The only thing worse is lapsed faith, disbelief, and materialism. What a choice.