Rating: 
Summary: a movie that has it all
Review: sex,drugs,violence,gambling,perversion,apathy,sin,sports,nudity,music (when are we gonna release a soundtrack??),guilt,abuse,religion,redemption.....all mixed in so well you will feel itwhere it hurts!!sure it's beyond repulsive--but thats all part of the plan and the journeyand the salvation(?).no other film goes to such extremesso far from one side to the other--andmake it resolve credibly.
Rating: 
Summary: Avoid it
Review: Looking at the general good recommendations, I decided to check the movie out and could not stand more than 1/2 hour of it. It is a sick movie which tries to glorify violence and drugs, is an attempt to just run through time instead of having even a decent story.
Rating:
Summary: Totally Real
Review: Harvey Keitel gives a star performance as a drug addicted, alcoholic, corrupt low life cop. Holding the rank of Lieutenant, he is worse than many of the people he has to arrest. This is not a feel good movie. By the end of it, I felt like committing suicide. It shows big city life as bad as it can get. Crime infested streets. Drug dealers on every corner. Murder an everyday occurrence. So common place that the Police officers have mentally switched off from the horrors that confront them day-by-day. As perfectly illustrated when Keitel turns up at a double murder scene. Two bodies still sat in the front seats of their car, where they were both shot through the head. Keitel's only topic of conversation at the scene is the nights forthcoming Baseball game, as he tries to get his pals to place bets with him on who's going to win. It gets worse. After the graphic rape of a nun, Keitel turns up at the hospital on the pretext of interviewing her about the crime. But he gets no closer than the slightly open door to her room. On seeing that she is completely naked and being medically examined by a Doctor, without making his presence known, he just stands and watches through the gap in the door like a little ten year old peeping tom. We see him taking drugs from crime scenes and handing them over to his own personal dealer who then sells the stuff on the street for him. His greatest abuse of his authority and the trust people place in him comes when he pulls two young women over because their taillight is out on their car. He doesn't waist any time in getting to the point. "If I do something for you, by letting you go, what will you do in return for me?" I'm not going to say what happens next, you'll just have to watch the film. He does redeem himself towards the end of the film, and you almost end up thinking that he's not such a bad person after all. Heavily in debt from gambling, his past finally catches up with him at the end. If you liked the film Taxi Driver, you'll love this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A Set-Up
Review: If Abel Ferrara had chosen to omit the glaringly inconsistent scene in which the bad cop puts the nun's rapists on a bus rather than run them in, only to have him sit and wait for his own execution, Bad Lieutenant would have been merely an obscene foray into the life of a spaced-out, brutal man intent on his own destruction. That ultimate destruction seems to take forever. Ferrara's Catholicism is a tad overly-literal. In fact, his chosen ending is as arbitrary and as ludicrous as the one chosen by Paul Schrader (another Bresson admirer) for Richard Gere in American Gigolo. What Bad Lieutenant makes glaringly obvious is the fact that a Christian message cannot be found just anyhere. It has to be earned in the dramaturgy, in the very texture of the film. Redemption is not simply a matter of doing one lousy good deed (setting a pair of rapists free?) and then committing tacit suicide. And Harvey Keitel, capable of occasional power, is merely foul-smelling in this role. And yet, it is so often praised as some kind of a masterpiece and Ferrara as a sort of genius. As Stanley Kauffmann once said in another context, after this "burlesque is impossible."
Rating:
Summary: Bad Movie
Review: Yes, Harvey Kietel is one of the best actors of his generation. Yes, he should be admired for taking on risky roles such as the title character here. But give me a break. This film is so bleak and Kietel's character so unlikeable that the movie is absolutely no fun to watch. And as for the grotesque religous symbolism, I don't even want to go there. Almost any of Kietel's other movies (yes, even Bill Cosby comedy "Mother, Jugs and Speed) would be a better purchase than this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A Disturbingly Realistic Film!!!
Review: 'Bad Lieutenant' is less about guilt than it is about redemption. Harvey Keitel gives a gutsy performance as the Lt., he bravely delves into the complicated mind of this disgusting character. An admirable actor/director teaming, Abel Ferrara directs with surefire tempo and adds a cinema verite style to the film. The film is a slow descent into the vowels of hell, as we see the Lt. degrede himself in various ways; doing or selling the drugs he confiscates, drinking vodka like it were water, sleeping around with women, gambling dangerously. He is a very bad man, but as he gets a rape case involving a nun, he starts to question his existence and even has a spiritual experience. A disturbingly graphic film that remains one of the sleaziest films ever made, but also a brave film that is undeniably gripping if not a bit too uncomfortable. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film an 8!
Rating:
Summary: destroyed policeman
Review: If there should be more than ten commandements, sure this lieutenant will have broken and sinned against they also. Sure, this man is religious - vaguely catholic-, but undoubtly being religious never has been as being a good person. This movie has much of baroquism, and it's difficult sometimes to separate phantasy or drug dreams from reality in the mind of the lieutenant. But poor than these I feel some real police men, lieutenants or not, are lamentably not far of this terrible cop, and also his mates, that neither seems to merite to be trusted. The lieutenant likes to gamble, but nothing vital as the own baseball game imports to him. His sexual activities though performed with real women are "diferred" as seen in a video. Terrible and very good film.
Rating:
Summary: Let Me See Your Mouth
Review: A brave look at a man who has every vice in the book. Keitel gives a balls to the walls performance. This is a movie where you have to read the character, try to get inside his emotional chaos. Everything is not spelled out for you. The only boost this movie could have used was in the form of a musical score. Scenes with a score could have given a feel of the Lt.s grit. DVD transfer is pretty good. A good acquisition if you like art.
Rating:
Summary: True Story
Review: I saw this movie years ago and still have to watch it again when I see it on TV. Harvey Keitel plays a role so conviencing, of a man barely hanging on to sanity. Personally having close friends to the same type of addiction makes this very accurate. This is the type of movie that you never forget about. Director and actor do a excellant job. Watch it.....
Rating:
Summary: Powerful film about sin, forgiveness and redemption
Review: For everyone who thinks that this film is only about depravity, think again. This is a powerful film about sin, forgiveness, and redemption. It may be one of the most religious films of our times or about our times. The acting by Harvey Keitel is just superb. Most of the movie explores every type of addiction that can be thought of...drugs, alcohol, deviant sex, gambling...all spiraling downward into an abyss of emptiness. Finally, when the Bad Lieutenant can see nothing but the dregs of his miserable existence, he is confronted by something that truly shakes him: not a bad dose of cocaine or heroin, not big losses on gambling, but the unbelievable example of a fellow human being who demonstrates true, unconditional love. His anguished cry for forgiveness is the most moving part of the film and leads to his ultimate redemption. The Bad Lieutenant is the good thief on the cross of our times.
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