Bad Lieutenant

A corrupt New York City police officer (Harvey Keitel) is shaken by a case involving the rape of a young nun.

Bad Lieutenant is one of the most unpleasant movies I’ve ever seen. To be sure, it’s brilliantly written and performed (Harvey Keitel delivers the performance of a lifetime), but the sheer despair that builds as the titular character spirals further and further into his own abyss is overwhelming.

To say there are no likable characters in Bad Lieutenant is an understatement. You actually despise most of the characters, and the few that you’re ambivalent about aren’t on the screen long enough to register. This isn’t a shortcoming of the movie though, as director Abel Ferrara tells this story with believable characters, and it’s the nature of the story that precludes any likable characters.

This makes grading Bad Lieutenant very difficult. As a work of art, Bad Lieutenant is a masterpiece, but it certainly isn’t very entertaining. In the end I settled for a middle ground; something I’m glad Ferrara didn’t do. The movie’s 98 minute running time could have been trimmed by a good 5-10 minutes to make it more digestible while still telling the same story, but it certainly would have lessened the movie’s impact.