Rating: 
Summary: One of the best films ever
Review: Harvey Keitel is defintetly one of the most underrated actors to ever grace the screen. take the deniros and wash them away. Keitel is the purest form of actor. sincerity emotion and realism. this is his best work ever.get the nc-17 version, the R version sucks
Rating:
Summary: A great movie that should be given its due.
Review: A friend of mine once recommended me the "Bad Lieutenant" and raved how great it was and how I had to see it. After seeing the film, I realized why the "Bad Lieutenant" is such a cult classic. You would think that Keitel's character would be a good cop who does the right thing. Instead you get a corrupt junkie cop who is damned from the very beginning and knows it. The scene where a delusional Keitel sees Jesus is the most intense emotional performance I have seen since De Niro's jail scene in Raging Bull. Abel Ferrara thankfully resisted any temptations to glamorize Keitel's drug use because it would have made his downward spiral less real and tragic. This is not an easy movie to stomach. It provokes so many conflicting emotions about the character because you hate the cop for being so evil. On the other hand, you want to understand why he does what he does, because deep down, you want him to be saved even though he is too late. I can't believe Keitel wasn't even nominated for an Oscar because his performance in this film is the best of the decade. Keitel and Ferrara took a big chance on the "Bad Lieutenant" but those two seem to create their best work when they do.
Rating: 
Summary: Waste of Time
Review: This boring and uneventful film is so bad after I heard the 'great' reviews, how many times is one suckered into believing that independent films can all be good? Well, there's plenty of stinkers in the lot! Don't get this unless you are a depraved sicko who likes to watch Keital in his B-day suit, a total artless flick.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm sorry, Lord. I've done so many bad things.
Review: Harvey Keitel plays a Lieutenant who is heavily into drugs, sex, and gambling. He has no name, and that is for a reason. This film wants to show the animosity of the character. It wants to create a sense that Keitel is playing an "everyman". Not necessarily a cop with a specific name, but anyone...almost showing us that this type of corruption happens in the least expected places, by the least expected people. The film opens with Keitel taking his children to school. We are disillusioned by the idea, that he has strong family values, perhaps he isn't the "bad" cop that everyone is expecting. After 10 minutes into the film, that idea changes dramatically. We see him trying to steal drugs out of a car, looking at the breasts of a shot girl, by taking money from a grocery store owner, and finally by doing mass amounts of cocaine and heroine. After about thirty minutes of no story line, just graphic sex and drug use, we are pushed into yet another horrifying scene. This is supposed to be the "plot" of the film. An inexplicable act of violence takes place that makes Keitel reconsider his chosen path of life. His world gets changed all around as he tries to hunt down the criminals of this case, and also dramatically use religion to look back at his soul. Can both these criminals and Keitel be saved?
Too much character development can hurt or help a film. In this case, it hurt it. With very small amounts of dialogue, but extra elongated drug scenes, we are forced to have the impression that Keitel is a bad cop. Alright, after five minutes I get it...but why show more? Why take about three-fourths of the film to show all of the evil deeds that this Lieutenant is capable of doing? This could have been a very dark and disturbing film, but instead it fell into the problem that "The Deer Hunter" had. The director chose to use the "leave the camera running" technique. This means, that he thinks that the true nature of the character will come out the longer that he leaves the camera running during a scene. This can be true in some instances, but for this film it did not. I understood that he was a corrupt cop, I mean, I got that much from the title. Tell me more...why was he a bad cop? This might seem like a small point, but it would have helped when trying to get into the mindset of the character.
I felt that the director left too much up for the viewer to assume. For the two big drug scenes, there were some random people that Keitel was with, and I had no clue who they were. Develop these smaller characters too, this will allow you to build a believable world for the main character. If you don't do this, then when your "big" central moment does occur the viewer will not be lost. When Keitel begins looking back at his own life actions, he begins to worry that he doesn't know what to do to make things right, or how to do "the right thing". For too long he has been bending the rules, and living the lifestyle that he has become accustomed to...that when he wants to change his life, he doesn't know how to. BUT I will tell you this that by doing more drugs and by allowing crime to continue does not push him in the right direction.
Overall, there wasn't enough development of Keitel's character to justify being shocked by this movie. I remember very clearly the last thought running through my mind when the credits rolled, it was..."Thank God this film is over....".
Grade: * out of *****
Rating:
Summary: Mr. Keitel sure is brave....
Review: Every now and the Abe Ferrara makes a movie that kicks you in the stomach and ruptures your spleen. This is the one. Harvey Keitel gives a career-defining performance as the title character, an alcoholic, drug- and gambling-addicted, sleazebag cop pervert. His Jesus hallucination scene is almost too much to take. But then again, so is the whole of this dark, dark film.
Rating: 
Summary: "Bad Lieutenant" Review
Review: Abel Ferrera's controversial 1992 film about a self-destructive police lieutenant is not for everyone. Keitel gives a solid performance as the title character, an obsessive crooked cop who is called into investigate the sexual assault of a nun. Ferrera loads the film with shocking images that will offend sensitive viewers but unfortunately, the movie falls a little short in the storytelling department. The movie never really steps out of the boundary of its basic premise which is about a man trapped in his own personal demons. While often compared to Scorsese's "Taxi Driver", it plays out more like Larry Clark's "Kids". It is a raw and realistic portrait of a character that could very well have been pulled out of today's headlines.
Rating:
Summary: He's a bad cop and out of control. But there is redemption.
Review: In this 1992 film Harvey Keitel is cast in the role of a bad cop. He's a addicted to cocaine, abuses power and is at the bottom of a downward moral decline. He shows us his weaknesses and bares his soul and we hate the acts he does but also see a tortured man who is out of control in every way. When another cop is about to arrest some thieves, Keitel sends the other cop away, takes their money and then lets the thieves go. He gets his payoffs in cocaine from drug dealers. He uses his police power to force some teenage girls to satisfy his sick needs. And he is constantly drinking to counteract his cocaine high. It's rather surprising, but not unbelievable, that he still lives with his family and four children but he has long since given up any attempt at reconciling to a middle-class life. And, to top it off, against the background of the World Series, he is way over his head in gambling debts. Then he is brought into a case where a young nun is brutally violated. She knows the two men who have committed the terrible act but refuses to name them to the police. "I have already forgiven them," she says. This throws Keitel into a moral and spiritual quandary, and how he resolves it might be shocking to some but is understandable, given his character. This is perhaps Harvey Keitel's finest performance. I felt his humanity in spite of all his nasty acts. Underneath it all was a very troubled human being. Wisely, the screenwriter didn't give him a name. We just think of him as the bad cop. And also, wisely, we don't get any back story. I had been actually waiting for it. I wanted to know the reason that would make a man act this way. But my curiously was never satisfied. Instead, I was thrown into the man's current moral dilemma. The result was a deeply disturbing journey into the depths of depravity and redemption. I applaud the filmmakers, as well the director Abel Ferrera, who, with the help of Zoe Lund, also wrote the screenplay. It took a lot of courage to bring this story to the screen. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: poignant
Review: Keitel never received the critical acclaim of his peers from the same era, partly because he was quite limited as an actor. While Deniro and Pacino wer capable of playing a multitude of roles, Keitel was capable of playing a person who was at times masculine and at other times tender.
Bad Lieutenant is no exception. Set in the mean streets of New York, Keitel plays a cop(I use the term loosely), who for years has been getting high and accepting favors from local prostitutes. After he is called to investigate the rape of a nun, he wants redemption.
Keitel's performance is not oscar-worthy, but the agony he beings to the role of Lieutenant is worthy of praise. Keitel does almost no real acting here, as he hardly has any conversations with anybody. I think Ferrara wanted to emphasize Lt's isolation from his surroundings(this is further confirmed by the fact that the Lieutenant has no real identity in the credits).
Shortly after viewing this film I read Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. I have been able to draw several parallels between that book and Bad Lieutenant. Both stories tell of a man who is aware of the ailments of the society in which he lives, and yet despite being aware of them, they constantly affect his life. In Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, the narrators relationship with his son was strained
, yet he constantly talks about a lcak of quality in American life, be it in relationships, everyday labour, or whatnot. Similarly in Bad Lieutenant, LT is commiti=ting crime of greater magnitude than the people he arrests!
In my opinion, Bad Lieutenant is one of the only movies that really explores the downfalls of this society. I've seen Training Day with Denzel, and I feel that that is much too glorified to be true. Bad Lieuteant is realistic and much more bold than Training Day.
Rating:
Summary: Makes Denzel look like a puppy
Review: The Bad Lieutenant is great movie that makes Denzel Washington look like puppy dog in Training Day. Harvey Keitel is a great actor worthy of a nomination at least for his role in this movie. This is a dark look into the mind of a corrupt man hiding behind a badge. Most directors are afraid to make movies that involve taboo subjects. Its nice to see poeple make movies that don't have happy endings. If you like movies that are emotional and chaulk full of shocking scenes then this is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning
Review: Harvey Keitel gives a searing performance as the Lieutenant, a thoroughly corrupted and evil human being who abuses his power, himself, and those around him in equal measure. He clearly loathes what he has become but knows no other way to be. As the film opens, he appears to be the final stages of an extended suicide by lifestyle-he is constantly ingesting drugs and increasing the amount of his losing bet on the World Series to underworld thugs who are fully prepared to kill him for welshing on his gambling debts. When a raped nun refuses to reveal the identity of her attackers because she has forgiven them, the Lieutenant, a very lapsed Catholic, is stunned by this act of absolution and begins to long for some form of redemption for himself. This powerful film is essentially plotless. We are forced to wallow in the Lieutenant's degrading world; many scenes that detail his transgressions go on longer than they would in most films. But all of this is presented in service of the Lieutenant's final act, a bid to be worthy of forgiveness that is provocative and faithful to his character. This is one of the most interesting and serious films on the subject of spiritual salvation that I have ever seen.
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