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Bad Lieutenant (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]
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Additional Multi-Format options | Edition | Discs | Price | New from | Used from |
Watch Instantly with | Rent | Buy |
Bad Lieutenant | — | — |
Purchase options and add-ons
Genre | Drama |
Format | Multiple Formats, Blu-ray, NTSC, Closed-captioned, Widescreen |
Contributor | Harvey Keitel, Abel Ferrara |
Language | English |
Runtime | 1 hour and 36 minutes |
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Product Description
Harvey Keitel is a nameless New York cop, hopelessly addicted to drugs, gambling, and sex. As he makes his way to various crime scenes, he is concerned only with taking bets from his fellow cops on the outcome of the ongoing National League playoffs. As his bad decisions drive him deeper into debt, his life becomes a surreal hell, with a constant intake of crack, coke, heroin and booze eroding what remains of his sanity. An investigation into the rape of a nun leads to his spiritual breakdown at the church crime scene, where he sees Jesus and the road to his salvation. This gutsy, highly original tale is one of Ferrara’s most perfectly realized films and a pinnacle in the career of Keitel, whose performance transcends the screen in its sheer bravery.
Product details
- Is Discontinued By Manufacturer : No
- MPAA rating : NC-17 (Adults Only)
- Product Dimensions : 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 0.01 ounces
- Item model number : 9392694
- Director : Abel Ferrara
- Media Format : Multiple Formats, Blu-ray, NTSC, Closed-captioned, Widescreen
- Run time : 1 hour and 36 minutes
- Release date : October 5, 2010
- Actors : Harvey Keitel
- Studio : Lionsgate
- ASIN : B003Y5H5I8
- Country of Origin : USA
- Number of discs : 1
- Best Sellers Rank: #9,530 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
- #1,083 in Drama Blu-ray Discs
- Customer Reviews:
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Keitel oozes pure pathos as the Bad Lieutenant. In Ferrara's case, you can take the boy out of the Faith, but you can't take the Faith out of the boy. The fact that The Lieutenant comes across as morally lower than the dregs he is supposed to protect society from is obviously no mistake. He hasn't fallen on hard times, the man is simply detestable scum. This particular fallen man, presumably redeemed by his faith, has become so abhorrent that he is the cause of his own destruction via drug and gambling addiction. This is unadulterated Shakespearean Tragedy. The fact that Ferrara chose to make the main character a Lieutenant, instead of just another "bad cop" is delightfully ironic, given that a lieutenant is often "second in command" -- and Keitel's character is absolutely NOT in command but rather completely controlled by his own vices.
Frankie Thorn gives an admirable performance as the Nun. Even with very little dialogue, she conveys the Nun's devoutness with her masterful facial expressions, which are almost eerily compassionate and clement. Her ability to forgive her attackers is so incongruous with the Lieutenant's natural response of indignation, that he not only finds her act of charity unfathomable but also, amazingly, repugnant. However, whatever good character that survives in the Lieutenant is able to respond to her declaration of forgiveness with true contrition, begging Christ for mercy. It is this deep contrition that propels the Lieutenant to perform his own unfathomable act of charity.
I sympathize with, but respectfully disagree with, those who find the Lieutenant's act towards the rapists as heinous. Like St. Dismas, the Lieutenant is justly punished for his crimes in the final scene, but only after he is redeemed by his own work of charity and act of faith (keep in mind he does as the Nun would have him do). As to the eventual and final fates of the rapists, Ferrara is acutely silent.
There's a song, "Bad to the Bone," which might sum up the detective, or it might not be strong enough because Harvey Keitel's character is bad to the bone and then some. He lives as a family man, but on the edge, clearly not part of this family, a stuffed man, stuffed with aloneness, stuffed with horrors of his own making. Director Abel Ferrara's filming technique extends this isolation by making the movie look like a docudrama. Filmed on location. No takes. Shoot as is. Keep the cameras rolling.
He starts the day clean as he drops his two sons off at school. During the course of the day he investigates two vicious murders, a store theft he turns to his advantage by keeping the stolen money, does drugs with a stoned out, emaciated redhead, and engages in a menage-a-trois with two women. During this scene he evens out the equal rights debate for male actors to engage in full frontal nudity. Yes, he does. Then he gets his life-defining case--the vicious rape of a young nun by two local petty drug dealers.
Harvey Keitel has spent the day engaged in personal encounters with, well, let's name it, sins of the flesh, of the soul. He sees the nun several times over the next few days, trying to understand what happened to her. When she tells him with her own mouth that she forgives the two men and will not identify them or name them, but only forgives them, he has a major crisis of conscience.
One reviewer calls this film a major religious movie, and, indeed, it becomes so. These are scenes to cherish for their truthful beauty, for their naked exposure of a soul in dire peril. Harvey Keitel produces a keening for his soul the like which will make your hair stand on end. The following scenes need to be seen and not read.
What transpires resonants with the viewer as the viewer comes to understand the moment's eternal meaning. No more will I say.
Note: This movie is rated NC-17 and is not for the squeamish.
1. Some reviewers complain that the drug use scenes were gratuitously graphic. Perhaps - perhaps it was a touch gratuitous in places, but the element is central to the film's artistic vision. The oodles of drugs being passed around and consumed, the blood filling the syringe before mixing with the heroin and re-injected into the vein - these represent a depraved, debased parody of the Christian Eucharist, the communion from the false gods that the Lieutenant worships. Incidentally, some reviewers likened Darryl Strawberry to Satan taunting Keitel's "Christ-like" suffering. Nah - his character suffers, but he's hardly "Christ-like", and Strawberry was only one of the many false idols that this lost soul worships.
2. Frankie Thorn as the young nun was much too movie-star gorgeous to make a credible nun, despite an earnest performance from the actress. It doesn't mean that the role could've only gone to a "plain Jane", but it does require more of a backstory to sell someone who looks like Frankie Thorn as a nun. Perhaps she's a nun visiting from Ireland, someone from a remote farmstead well-sheltered from the contaminants of the modern world. It would also have added depth to the character and the story - In real life such a person would have elicited condescension from many (myself probably included), and maybe evencontempt from some. But in the end it was her simple pure faith that proved stronger than the cynicism of the world.
Top reviews from other countries
This is the version with the full-frontal, male nudity in a scene which makes the film raw, and first made me appreciate Keitel's awesome ability as an actor.
For my taste Harvey Keitel delivers one of the great tortured urban male character studies of modern cinema and I rate his acting here alongside Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter and Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. Bad Lieutenant remains an undeniable influence on today's new talent such as Antoine Fuqua
Keitel is so raw so intense and utterly convincing in his portrait of a man spiralling out of control towards utter oblivion that as a viewer I find myself almost having to pinch my own skin to remember that I am indeed watching an actor performing in front of a camera. This is a morality piece set in a religious frame-work, but as a viewer without any religious conviction I can say without doubt that none is required to fully appreciate the gravity of the unfolding events and their religious symbolism, above all this is a human story and one that will reach out and touch your humanity.
Bad Lieutenant is a character study and the character study of the 1990's and Mr Keitel should have won an Oscar for his incredible effort here. Sadly independent cinema has been in decline since the mid-1980's and the funding for such a film as this was incredibly hard to secure. Some of you accustomed to slick visual perfection will find much to criticise in terms of camera work and lighting, but remember this is guerrilla film-making with whole sections of this picture stolen right there on the streets and as such completely vital and engaging than your typical stylised cop picture.
The story here is original, taken in-part from a real life case history which you will learn, with some initial incredulity, from the wonderfully insightful three layered features which explore all aspects of this film. I highly recommend you watch. In addition you get an always entertaining commentary track with director Abel and on this release his long time cameraman Ken Kelsch.
I desperately miss new films from Abel Ferrara, but rejoice fellow fans, sit back and appreciate one of his masterpieces here finally in hi-def. Now if only we could have The Addiction, Angel Of Vengeance and a U.K friendly blu ray release of King Of New York.