Bad Lieutenant (1992)
74 %
Reviews Counted: 35 Fresh: 26 Rotten:9 Average Rating: 6.8/10
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Synopsis:
Harvey Keitel stars as a nameless New York cop, hopelessy addicted to drugs, gambling, and sex, in this intense, hallucinatory portrait of sin and redemption by Abel Ferrara. The film follows the lieutenant as he makes his way to various crime scenes, concerned only with taking bets from his... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Frankie Acciario, Brian McElroy, Peggy Formley, Stella Keitel
Director: Abel Ferrara
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Reviews
Top Critic
Keitel is onscreen for pretty much the entire movie and clearly relishes the opportunity of playing someone not so much teetering on the abyss as leaping off with a grand piano manacled to each ankle.
04/09/08 11:26 AM
Quite possibly Ferrara's finest hour, with an almost unbearably sincere performance from Keitel.
04/09/08 11:26 AM
Bad Lieutenant is finally a pulp parable of sin, addiction, and redemption, a movie that, like its subversive hero, revels in the pleasure -- and danger -- of going too far.
04/09/08 11:24 AM
Top Critic Abel Ferrara's uncompromising Bad Lieutenant is a harrowing journey with a corrupt N.Y. cop sinking into the lower depths.
04/09/08 11:20 AM
Top Critic Though hardly a film for all sensibilities, Bad Lieutenant has the courage of its own convictions, and follows them to the bitter end.
04/09/08 11:11 AM
There's an undeniable formal elegance in the way Ferrara, who coauthored the script with Zoe Lund, frames and holds certain shots, and Keitel certainly gives his all.
04/09/08 11:01 AM
Top Critic
Ferrara allows his star to dictate the pace, and is rewarded with a performance of extraordinary, terrifying honesty.
01/26/06 03:16 AM
Scabrously powerful, the film dives into the addictive psyche, mixing Ferrara's fave elements: sex, drugs, and mayhem. Yet like his other films, it's a morality play about reclaimed sinners desperate for salvation in a world devoid of love and decency.
07/17/05 09:11 PM
When Abel Ferrara calls something bad, better believe it: he means business.
05/20/03 05:13 PM
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• Bad Lieutenant at Rotten Tomatoes
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