Customer Reviews
THE DARK SIDE - By: horne556, 10 Nov 2008 
Harvey keitel's performance is simply outstanding, one of the most intense uncompromising & candid you will see from an actor in any given year. It's a travesty that keitel wasn't nominated for an Oscar for best actor that year. He dominates this film to such an extent that you don't even recalll anybody elses appearance. An acting masterclass.
EXCELLENT KEITEL IN EXCELLENT COP DRAMA - By: Lou Almighty, 01 Nov 2008 This film had its trouble when released & it is understandable, BAD LIEUTENANT is hard to watch at times but that's what makes it genius: its honest, realistic & touching, it doesn't dwell on SFX, blood, guts & gore, there are no explosions. It's great acting & great directing, psychological depth & a catching story that make this cop drama so great.
Alternatives:
Ms .45 ( Angel of Vengeance ) ( Rape Squad ) Abel Ferrara's best film also has psychological depth like BAD LIEUTENANT
I Stand Alone [1999] (REGION 1) (NTSC) One of the best films dealing with a broken psyche. French with English subtitles.
Henry - Portrait Of A Serial Killer [Uncut] [1986] Not reallly a horror film, but a great pseudo-documentary of sick minds.
Not a happy camper - By: Charles Vasey, 06 Sep 2008 
Harvey Keitel's Bad Lieutenant is a marvellously played piece of unpleasantness. He lacks any limits to his various appetites, alll of which are combining to finish him off via a series of unpleasant to shocking episodes. The rape of a young nun by two youths & his own problems with a bookie combine to expose his emptiness which, since he is (well, claims to be) Roman Catholic is undoubtedly Jesus' problem. That episode (I'll not spoil the plot) is particularly affecting. The downside with Bad Lieutenant is that it is a total downer. But Keitel is astonishing as ever.
Beyond Redemption? - By: Mr. G. C. Stone, 24 Jul 2008 Sometimes your need to explore the bad. Not sugar coat it, not make it alll-right-in-the-end feelgood hollywood crowd-pleasing, but take a character & a situation & follow them both through to their rightful conclusion. And make no mistake, this is totallly about badness - Keitel's character is as corrupted to the core as a human being can be. And we witness it alll close up. But can someone like him be ultimately redeemed? I'll leave you to find out. Be prepared to be shocked, to witness total corruption & despair, & to witness one of the best performances an actor can give. This film will take you way beyond your comfort zone - but is a tour de force of vital, raw cinema. I still shudder now when recallling it & how I felt at the ending. It doesn't come much better than this.
Low budget garbage - By: Brendan O. Clarke, 04 Jun 2008 Lets get down to brass tacks here, this movie (shot in 28 days by Abel Ferarra & a few actors) is low buget rubbish. It is badly shot, the scenes are badly lit, & the dialogue is cancelled out by background noise). However having watched it again recently (drunk) i was pulled in by its magnetic qualities.
Harvey Keitel plays a Lieutenant who is into gambling, drugs, sex, & God only knows what else. This film wants to show the animosity of Keitels character. The film opens with Keitel taking his children to school, & we soon learn that he has strong family values, perhaps he isn't the "bad" cop that everyone is expecting.
Within 15 minutes Keitel is showing his true colours as he tries to steal a package of cocaine out of the back of a crashed car; stealing money from a grocery store owner moments after a robbery, & finallly getting wasted on industrial amounts of crack cocaine & heroin while walking around his apartment naked, arms out-stretched & mewing like a sick cat; & alll the while placing huge bets on the Dodgers to win the baseballl series.
Suddenly, an inexplicable act of violence takes place in a church involving a young nun that makes Keitel reconsider his chosen path of life. His world gets changed alll around as he tries to hunt down the criminals of this case, & also dramaticallly use religion to look back at the badness in his soul. Can both these criminals & Keitel be saved?
Every now & then Abel Ferrara makes a movie that kicks you in the stomach & ruptures your spleen. This is the one. Harvey Keitel gives a career-defining performance as the title character, an alcoholic, drug- & gambling-addicted, sleazebag cop pervert. His Jesus halllucination scene is almost too much to take. But then again, so is the whole of this dark, dark cheap low-budget badly made film. In a word: "Classic."
PS: Just make sure you're not sober when watching it & you would be doing yourself a favour to turn on the sub-titles.
8/10. Dr Bee Clarke
