In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Werner Herzog's version of 'Bad Lieutenant' is better crafted and might be better film altogether, but Herzog's camera will not bring the restless grittiness like Ferrara's guerrilla style work, and Nicolas Cage's craziness will not match Harvey Keitel's pure absence of morals. When Abel Ferrara titles his film 'Bad Lieutenant' then he means bad, like really bad. Harvey Keitel is awesomely sinister as nameless police lieutenant who spirals deeper and deeper into the world of drugs and gambling and obscene behavior (the scene where lieutenant pulls over the two girls with broken taillight probably shows best how messed up his thinking is).Ferrara has never been afraid of shocking the audience. Same goes with 'Bad Lieutenant' - the nudity, violence and grotesque images are so in your face that it elevates the film onto another level. Talking about unnecessary nudity used wright. Although the film mainly follows Keitel's character drinking, doing drugs or visiting hookers, and focuses very little on the detective work, 'Bad Lieutenant' has different layers talking also about forgiveness and finding redemption.Lurid and dirty, but done with such sincerity and bravado, 'Bad Lieutenant' remains one of the most impacting and influential cult films of the 1990s, and is worth to watch for Hervey Keitel's powerhouse performance alone.

OK so i decided to give it a watch since it was considered the top 25 dangerous movies by Premiere and I thought why not, sure it might be interesting to see the eyes of a police junkie who is investigating a sexual abuse case from a poor young nun. I swear, I really didn't see any action or any interesting scenes from it, it was just completely dull and not interesting at all. We literally see him investigating the crime and being high from the drugs he uses. It honestly doesn't make the story flow in my personal opinion.........................I just think this film shouldn't exist if it wasn't gonna be right. I was very surprised that it got a 70% positive metascore and got 2 wins. It didn't need it really, it was just bullcrap, i give this a 3/10.

No doubt Harvey Keitel is an excellent actor and in Bad Lieutenant Harvey portrays a dirty cop which is right up his alley as an actor. The Bad Lieutenant's name is not important which is more of a symbolism that this bad Lieutenant's life is not important but rather meaningless. As the Lieutenant continues to drive around New York city supposedly representing the city of New York's police department fighting crime, the bad Lieutenant is actually spiralling further and further out of control by digesting a junkies dose of cocaine each day and drinking himself into oblivion by night.The story evolves around a beautiful young nun who is raped in her Catholic church by two young men who attend the local school attached to the church where the nun is raped. As the investigation begins the nun is reluctant to incriminate the two young men who raped her. Instead, she enters the confessional and asks the priest hearing her confession to keep his oath of privacy and she will too by not telling the police who raped her as she has forgiven them already.The bad Lieutenant is not as forgiving, but as he continues to steal from local grocery store owners, rack up insurmountable gambling debts with the local bookies, commit lewd acts with young teenagers driving without a license, and take drug stashes for his personal use from the drug dealers, the bad Lieutenant chases down the nun's two rapists. As his own life is spiralling out of control we the audience wonder how the bad Lieutenant will revenge the rape of the young nun. This is not a story of redemption, but rather a story of a Lieutenant who has lost himself in the world of crime, drugs, and gambling and has lived the first 40 odd years of his life without fear of dying on the streets of New York. Harvey Keitel provides the audience with another strong performance but the story line itself is simply one dimensional and the bad Lieutenants repetitive bad habits and rants to the almighty Jesus or anyone else who will listen to him are quite frankly boring and lead the audience to the inevitable conclusion that the bad Lieutenant by title alone is not very good. I give the film a 2 out of 4 star rating for Mr. Keitel's strong acting, but I must say that writer/director Abel Ferrara's vision of a bad Liutenant in the city of New York's police force has been done many times before with better results than in this film.

Moral depravity and corruption as a character study? Good luck. A very difficult movie to watch, it is said here, but I am bound to point out how difficult it must have been to assemble a film like this.Redemption, as shown in film, can be a powerful thing whether it be religious or moral or not. In "Unforgiven", Clint Eastwood's character has been redeemed and reformed, seemingly, and walks himself into what is ultimately a replay of his sordid and murderous past. In the end he re-retreats from his reprise and disappears into the sunset. Here, Kietel's character is not interested in anyone's redemption, he is indulging in an orgy of self hate and self destruction.He violates every rule. He breaks the confidentiality of the hospital room, the confessional; he violates his body with drugs and sex and displays his depravity unabashedly whether he is stealing evidence, placing illegal wagers, or stopping two young girls in a car.And speaking of that particular scene, NO ONE could have played that better than Keitel. The anger, the sleaze, it's more self-abuse than self pleasure. All cast members turn in stellar performances in the course of playing out Ferrara's sickening, stunning and stark backdrop of filth - all his fellow cops seem to be dirtbags who drink on the job and gamble illegally as well.The ending, and the events leading up to it, make a lot more sense than has been realized. Keitel's character just gives up, and when he gets the two perpetrators, he's not looking to turn himself around, he is performing a senseless act by giving away the money and turning them loose. When he is told that he needs to pay his bookie, who will murder him without a second thought, he laughs - he doesn't care, and almost welcomes the idea of death. He makes losing bets but he clearly knows they are losing bets (the scene with the other cops shows him telling them to bet the other way!). He berates the mobster who's booking the bets knowing he will get killed.The idea of forgiving the nun's attackers is so out of whack to him... that he actually does it, bringing more focus to the dysfunctionality of his existence. He's going down, he knows it, he doesn't care. It's like reading a book and wanting to get to the end so you know how it ends. He knows how it ends; he just keeps turning the pages faster in a rush to get there.Superb.