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Abel
Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant is a shocking, confronting, and
highly controversial hard hitting drama.
It stars Harvey Keitel as a New York City Police Lieutenant who
is corrupted in every which way. He is a hard drug user who abuses
crack and heroin and snorts cocaine at any given opportunity.
He steals narcotics from crime scenes and sells it on the street
for profit. He is a family man who bangs hookers two at a time.
And he is quickly mounting an overwhelming debt based on bets
lost on the World Series between the New York Mets and the Los
Angeles Dodgers.
He is a man lost to the world. However when the brutal rape of
a Nun irks his Catholic guilt, he treads down a path of redemption
after she forgives her attackers.
Ferrara is a no holds barred filmmaker, and he provides some shocking
imagery which can make this film extremely distressing to watch.
Two keys scenes of graphic nature feature Keitel's cop in various
forms of madness. The first has him at his most depraved, when
he pulls over two teenage girls who were driving with a broken
tail light and no licence, and degrades them in a shocking abuse
of authority.
The other scene has his character at his most vulnerable, when
he breaks down in a Catholic church and confronts Jesus Christ
who appears in the flesh.
There are many other scenes that follow this template, yet some
are marred by the poor decisions of cinematographer Ken Kelsch,
whose choice of lighting in key scenes - especially that of the
rape of a nun whose neon lit look comes off as a perverted porno
film - goes against the gritty tone of the film.
But Bad Lieutenant is all about Keitel, who gives an extremely
brave and powerful performance. High profile actors hardly ever
put themselves out their like Keitel has in this film. He lets
it all hang out (literally in one scene!)
The combination of Keitel, New York City, and the Catholic Church
reminds of Martin Scorsese's Mean
Streets. Yet Bad Lieutenant is much
more disturbing and in your face, and successfully portrays the
destruction of the soul.
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