Bad Lieutenant Blu-ray Review

10th Apr 2012

Released on 16th April is a re-release and new release on Blu-ray of Abel Ferrara’s highly controversial Bad Lietenant. Recently remade as Bad Lieutenant Port of Call: New Orleans directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicholas Cage, it is not surprising that the Blu-ray release of the original film should follow after. In the noughties Ferrara seemed all but forgotten whereas in the early 1990s he was one of the most controversial and cult director’s following David Lynch; Ferrara was very much a name of the 1990s. Arguably his best film would be his 1990 film King of New York starring Christopher Walken in his strongest performance as a ruthless gangster. But Bad Lieutenant with its apparent amorality and seediness seems closer to Ferrara’s first feature, the banned cult video nasty, Driller Killer (1979) than any of his subsequent films for seedy controversy. However, what is not arguable is that Bad Lieutenant is his most controversial film.

Keitels’ Lieutenant is no Serpico or ‘Popeye’ Doyle or even a ‘Dirty’ Harry Callahan. He is a bad ass in a league of his own but his character is more than bad ass, he seems to have very few things going for him: he sleeps with hookers, takes cocaine and heroin, has a gambling addiction, kills bad guys without any recourse to justice and seems to be in so deep it would appear that nothing could redeem him. Indeed in one of the most shocking scenes in the film he stops two teenage girls who were driving without a license when he asks them to show how they would perform fellatio while he masturbates in front of them. An absolute abuse of power. And for me this is the most shocking scene in this film due to the uncomfortable length of time this scene takes. The lieutenant (he is simply known as that in the film) is beyond reproach, almost seems untouchable and no one seems to be on to him. What we do sense, however, is that he will either head for his own destruction or/and find redemption in one form or another. The final closing scene as he has escorted two murderers to the New York Port Authority building and put them on a bus and what follows is a wonderfully crafted ending to Ferrara’s film. The Lieutenant sure makes Dirty Harry look a comic book hero. For the most part the film does not appear to have much in the way of a structured plot other than the above mentioned as the Lieutenant heads towards oblivion. That is until the cop investigates the rape of a nun in her church by a couple of local kids. The cop is angry at the nun’s silence and her rejection at his offer of taking revenge on her behalf and this exposes his own catholic guilt (to say he is a lapsed catholic is an under statement) and slow redemption to move along a different path. At one moment in the church he has a vision of Jesus exposing his loss and return of faith while in another the cop is shown to have a primal screen and his naked toned body is shown in a crucified form.

This viewing of the film was the first time I had seen it since its original video release in the early 1990s and the film is still as shocking today as it was on its original release; usually films that were once deemed controversial can loose their power or appeal, but Bad Lieutenant has lost none of that. For most it is a thoroughly distasteful film with nothing to raise or elevate it. To view the film simply in these terms is to reject it totally out of hand. I admit, it’s neither a great nor even necessarily good film but it is a challenging one. What it does have though is an outstanding performance by Harvey Keitel. Keitel was a hot name in the early 1990s from appearances in two Quentin Tarantino films (Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction) and the very different sympathetic cop in Thelma and Louise, Keitel seemingly was always hitting the mark and screamed out to be used in indie films such as this. His character seems not too dissimilar from the one he played in Scorsese’s first hit Mean Streets (1973) but instead has gone down a totally different track. Without Keitel’s powerhouse performance this may have been a very different film and I would go as far as saying it is probably one of Keitel’s best in the way we do not sympathise with his character, we find him thoroughly despicable but somehow we care and are saddened by the end (without giving too much away). When he’s screaming at the radio because he is losing more and more money gambling on the outcome of the World Series to his creditors with a debt of $60,000 we are with him all the way. Keitel is the key to watching this film. I would go as far as to say to not look at it as arthouse cinema or a director’s piece, but instead from Keitel’s performance and maybe this will allow the viewer in. Also featured in the film isFerrara’s co-writer and regular Zoe Lund who also features as the cop’s junkie friend who jacks him up.

Also included on the disc besides the obligatory trailer is a commentary track byFerraraand an interview with the director from what looks like a press junket. On bothFerrarais his usual vague self with an almost flippant attitude to film giving a sense of a man who can be fairly guarded. His recent comments at Herzog’s recent remake, however, showed a different side in that he wished the worst for all involved. Perhaps in that case he let his guard down.