Harvey Keitel makes Abel Ferrara’s punishing crime drama worth enduring. Its religious insistence can be overbearing, but the performance makes a corrupt policeman’s distress matter without making his behaviour any less repellent.
Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant is worth watching for Harvey Keitel, provided an evening spent with a vicious, addicted policeman sounds bearable. Ferrara keeps close enough to this man to make the usual crime-drama comforts unavailable. There is an investigation, into the rape of a nun, but we are given little reason to regard the investigator as anyone’s protection. The film wants to know what guilt can mean to somebody who has become so practised at doing harm.
Keitel plays LT without the small courtesies that often make a screen brute acceptable company. He offers no knowing charm and gives us no invitation to enjoy the man’s capacity to disgust. We felt sorry for him, and were dismayed to find we did. His exposed anguish produces that concern without making the corruption any easier to stomach. There is something embarrassing about watching an actor surrender this much dignity, but the performance makes the lieutenant’s self-destruction difficult to watch with any detachment.
Ken Kelsch’s cinematography gives New York a grubby immediacy that makes the lieutenant’s behaviour feel close at hand. The city offers no picturesque relief from him. Charles M. Lagola’s production design contributes to the same discomfort, with surroundings that feel lived in and short on care. Together, they keep the film rooted in ordinary squalor. We believe in the place even when we struggle with Ferrara’s hopes for the man living in it.
Anthony Redman’s editing gives the film a loose, wearing rhythm, repeatedly returning us to the lieutenant’s self-destruction. That repetition makes addiction feel like wasted time, though at 96 minutes the film can still feel longer than it needs to. Joe Delia’s music adds to the pressure; it is effective, though Keitel hardly needs help making the man’s suffering felt. There are stretches where another dose of degradation tells us little that the performance has not already made clear, and the film’s concentration begins to feel restrictive.
The larger reservation lies with the screenplay by Ferrara and Zoë Lund, and its insistence on salvation. Ferrara keeps pressing the possibility that this man might be redeemed, until his anguish starts to seem sufficient reason to set aside the harm he does. Keitel has already made his distress matter, and the religious emphasis can turn a painful performance into an overworked plea. We do not need to be prodded quite so firmly. Still, the film takes guilt more seriously than crime dramas that give a corrupt policeman a sympathetic explanation and leave it at that.
This is an 18-certificate film whose sexual violence and degradation are not incidental details. It asks for close attention at moments when retreat would be more comfortable, and Keitel earns that attention. Choose it when a punishing character study is what the evening calls for; anyone hoping for competent police work and a little reassurance should make other arrangements.
