Directed by Abel Ferrara. Written by Zoë Lund and Abel Ferrara
Forget crooked cops and their nickel-and-dime rackets of bloated overtime and petty bribes, Abel Ferrara is here with a miscreant of biblical proportions in the shape of New York police officer LT who provides some next-level malfeasance in Bad Lieutenant.
Harvey Keitel dons the badge, and enjoys every sin. He robs robbers, sexually assaults teenage girls, sticks his nose in seized drugs, wraps his lips around crack pipes, and uses his service weapon like a magic wand to make his problems disappear. He reigns with impunity, goes unchallenged, and calls into question the need for a different acronym than ACAB. He’s outgrown it.
The thin blue line might as well be a streak of piss on hot pavement, so tenuous is the grip LT’s oath has on him, but LT’s a self-proclaimed proud catholic – even if his entire life suggests otherwise – so when a nun is sexually assaulted at the foot of the altar and degraded in the worst way possible, something stirs in LT… could it be the degradation of this holy woman reminds him of his own lapsed faith?
Completely off the rails but thematically dialed in, Bad Lieutenant is Abel Ferrara’s best work. It has his irreverent energy and taste for the uncouth, but where his other films sometimes descend into belligerence, this story of a bad cop’s life in purgatory paints a portrait of catholic guilt made manifest with clarity, intensity, and purpose.
Harvey Keitel is an animal in agony as LT, and there’s something almost primal in how he lays this deranged policeman bare. You almost expect Keitel, already a tense fist of a man, to drop down on all fours and claw his way forward, but more than just intensity, Keitel is able to collapse like LT’s very soul finally gives in to its slow erosion. Keitel clearly has no qualms about coming off as a complete mess.
It’s Ferrara’s most spiritual film, and it’s also his most philosophically sound. The bar isn’t terrifically high, of course, but Ferrara doesn’t give into his usual temptations, forgoing overdone spectacle to instead offer actual musings on the things between heaven and earth.
The New York of Bad Lieutenant is an amoral world left in the care of wolves, and LT’s about the most feral animal of them all, but grace is still possible, even for the wicked. Only the soul-searching can kill you. The spiritual sincerity of Bad Lieutenant is its art, and that’s what illuminates it so.
Contrary to its theme of moral reckoning, the movie’s far from sanctimonious, thank heavens. Ferrara is still Ferrara, and that means mile-a-minute action, ugly impulses, and messy grappling with the consequences thereof. It’s still far from instructional viewing, but the shock of its base nature, its thrilling descent into depravity, and artful deliverance makes it a tour de force.
Mikkel Frederiksen 