This movie has a few things going for it. The acting for one, Harvey Keitel is of course brilliant, and this is after all the movie which made him. I like the way the fast-talking football radio commentator acts as glue and ferment between the scenes, and in the opening shot. And the infamous scene where the nameless bad lieutenant sexually badgers two Jersey girls is a brilliant exercise in cinematic story telling, and proof yet again that what you don't show in a movie can be much worse than what you do show.
***SPOILERS ON*** (If you haven't seen the movie, the nameless bad lieutenant stops a car with a busted tail-light. As it turns out, the passengers are two out-of-town girls who have snaffled the family car to go to a downtown club, and they obviously don't want their parents to hear about it. The lieutenant then orders the passenger girl to turn around while he masturbates to the girl in the driver's seat simulating fellatio.
Visually, the scene is not explicit -- you see no skin or privates. Mentally the scene makes great impact. The scene is much creepier than if they had visually shown the lieutenant raping the two girls.) ***SPOILERS OFF***
But in many other aspects the movie is direly lacking. It uses a stream-of-consciousness-style of film-making where the scenes are shot in a documentary style, and you have to pick out the story from the scenes. Well, I was picking and picking and still looking for the story when suddenly the titles rolled. What I got at the end is this: a super-sexy nun has been raped, but refuses to identify the rapists because she's a Catholic who forgives those who rape her (and the fact that identifying the rapists might prevent them from raping others somehow never enters the picture). The Bad Lieutenant, being a Catholic himself, struggles with this, but he eventually captures the perps and for some reason puts them on a bus. Roll end titles. The crooked copper has ameliorated himself by setting free two nun rapists.
There is no protagonist, no antagonist, no suspense, no plot, no development. The movie is visually very stylish, but I never for one second believed that a real cop could carry on his excesses the way the bad lieutenant did. There are endless "dream sequences" where he injects freebase cocaine into his eyeballs in the company of a bevy of Nebraskan hookers whilst betting the life of his dead grandmother with the Albanian mafia on the Yankees' winning the world series, which unfortunately in itself is totally boring and unshocking to watch. There is never any moral conflict -- the lieutenant is too far gone for that. And if he's able to carry on all these excesses and STILL hold down a job as a police investigator, take care of his family AND maintain the physique of a competition body builder, then he must be doing something right. I abide by the law and eat muesli, and still look like a dead newt.
Overall, despite its reputation, a bad movie with only a few good scenes. It just tries too hard to be shocking and metaphorical.
***SPOILERS ON*** (If you haven't seen the movie, the nameless bad lieutenant stops a car with a busted tail-light. As it turns out, the passengers are two out-of-town girls who have snaffled the family car to go to a downtown club, and they obviously don't want their parents to hear about it. The lieutenant then orders the passenger girl to turn around while he masturbates to the girl in the driver's seat simulating fellatio.
Visually, the scene is not explicit -- you see no skin or privates. Mentally the scene makes great impact. The scene is much creepier than if they had visually shown the lieutenant raping the two girls.) ***SPOILERS OFF***
But in many other aspects the movie is direly lacking. It uses a stream-of-consciousness-style of film-making where the scenes are shot in a documentary style, and you have to pick out the story from the scenes. Well, I was picking and picking and still looking for the story when suddenly the titles rolled. What I got at the end is this: a super-sexy nun has been raped, but refuses to identify the rapists because she's a Catholic who forgives those who rape her (and the fact that identifying the rapists might prevent them from raping others somehow never enters the picture). The Bad Lieutenant, being a Catholic himself, struggles with this, but he eventually captures the perps and for some reason puts them on a bus. Roll end titles. The crooked copper has ameliorated himself by setting free two nun rapists.
There is no protagonist, no antagonist, no suspense, no plot, no development. The movie is visually very stylish, but I never for one second believed that a real cop could carry on his excesses the way the bad lieutenant did. There are endless "dream sequences" where he injects freebase cocaine into his eyeballs in the company of a bevy of Nebraskan hookers whilst betting the life of his dead grandmother with the Albanian mafia on the Yankees' winning the world series, which unfortunately in itself is totally boring and unshocking to watch. There is never any moral conflict -- the lieutenant is too far gone for that. And if he's able to carry on all these excesses and STILL hold down a job as a police investigator, take care of his family AND maintain the physique of a competition body builder, then he must be doing something right. I abide by the law and eat muesli, and still look like a dead newt.
Overall, despite its reputation, a bad movie with only a few good scenes. It just tries too hard to be shocking and metaphorical.