Cheap Bad Lieutenant (Video) (Harvey Keitel) (Abel Ferrara) Price

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Customer Reviews of Bad Lieutenant

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.

An unflinching, uncompromising look at self-destruction.
Abel Ferrara has never been the type of director whose films arouse cries of 'wow' from his audience. He is a bland director, favoring realism over spectacle. And while many directors fail in their attempt to reach their audience by not creating the appropriate 'world' for their characters to interact in, Ferrara always seems to make us connect with his characters. Even though we may not want to in the first place. What Ferrara lacks in style, he makes up for in sheer bravery. 'Bad Lieutenant' is his finest film since 'Ms. 45' and his best overall. Following a corrupt (to say the very least) cop through his last few days on earth, Ferrara manages to create a film that's both harrowing and challenging. It is also a movie that's as much about religion and the saving of one's own soul as it is about drug addiction and the corruption of power. The 'bad lieutenant' is never given a name. Who he is is not important. It's what he has become that matters. He is a gambler, a thief, a guilt-ridden Catholic, and a drug-addict. He is seen snorting cocaine outside his children's school, drinking in church, trying to steal drugs from the car of a recently murdered dealer, and even pocketing money from two young men who recently robbed a convienant store. The turning point of his life comes when he begins to investigate the brutal rape of a young nun. Sounds like a fun film, huh? Indeed this is a shocking movie, one which leaves an aftertaste at the base of your throat that you will not get rid of for days and days, but at it's center is a shred of hope, not much, but you feel it kicking and screaming there, waiting for someone to hear it. Harvey Keitel gives the performance of his career and one of the greatest film performances of the past twenty years. He bares his body (marking the first appearence of Harvey Jr.) and soul, unafraid of the material, embarrassing himself for the story. One of the true signs of a great actor is the lack of self-preservation. Few actors would allow themselves to be seen this way, but Keitel lays himself out there without any fear or hesitance. His performance is remarkable in every way. This is a film that is powerful and disturbing and not to be embraced frivolously. It's strength and message will be felt for days after viewing. One of the best films of the 1990s.

Bad Movie
There is no other way to put it this movie is banality at its worst.

There is no real story here, other than Harvey Keitel's character going around doing bad things over and over again throughout the movie. No real plot, not real story line. It's just a montage of scenes of a bad cop doing things bad cops do.

Thumbs way down.