Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Bad Lieutenant
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 3 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Abel Ferrara
Zoë Lund
Directed by: Abel Ferrara
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 20, 1992
DVD: November 10, 1998
Running Time: 98 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: NC-17
Starring Harvey Keitel, Brian McElroy, Frankie Acciarito, Peggy Gormley, Stella Keitel, Dana Dee, Victor Argo, and Paul Calderon
A New York cop (Keitel) is hopelessy addicted to drugs, gambling, and sex, in this intense, hallucinatory portrait of sin and redemption. The film follows the lieutenant as he makes his way to various crime scenes, concerned only with taking bets from his fellow cops on the outcome of the ongoing National League playoffs. An investigation into the rape of a nun leads to his spiritual breakdown at the church crime scene, where he sees Jesus and the road to his salvation.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Mary New Rose Hotel 'R Xmas The Blackout
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
It is not a "dirty movie," and in fact takes spirituality and morality more seriously than most films do. And in the bad lieutenant, Keitel has given us one of the great screen performances in recent years.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
Not only more crazy than “Reservoir Dogs,'' but it also feels more real. [1 Jan 1993, Daily Notebook, p.D1]
Entertainment Weekly Staff (Not Credited)
For all its scenes of degradation (five minutes of which have been shorn for an R-rated cut; we recommend the original NC-17 version), Bad Lieutenant is a deeply moral movie. It's not pretty-it's not even very realistic-but it does matter.
Read Full Review >Variety Staff (Not Credited)
Abel Ferrara's uncompromising Bad Lieutenant is a harrowing journey observing a corrupt NY cop sink into the depths, with an extraordinary and uninhibited performance by Harvey Keitel in the title role.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
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 in this 1992 entry in the Raging Bull redemptive sweepstakes.
Read Full Review >Empire Ian Nathan
Abel Ferrara out-sleazes even his own grubby oeuvre with this powerful if overbearing study of a soul swallowed by depravity.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten
What it lacks in charm, it compensates for with audacity and single-mindedness of vision.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Pick your cliche - searing, rivetting, haunting - Keitel delivers a performance to rival Brando's in "Last Tango In Paris."
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr
For Keitel, this is the Scorsese film that Scorsese never gave him, in which he gets to elbow Robert De Niro away from center stage and take the best part for himself. He seizes the opportunity: Bad Lieutenant immediately becomes one of the defining roles of his career. [22 Jan 1993, Friday, p.C]
TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)
Harvey Keitel gives an astonishing performance here... Though hardly a film for all sensibilities, Bad Lieutenant has the courage of its own convictions, and follows them to the bitter end.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Hal Hinson
Ferrara is clearly drawing an equation between the criminals' actions and The Lieutenant's, and as trite (and potentially shameless) as this may sound, it actually works.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Peter Rainer
It's a film enthralled by its own lower depths… Although Bad Lieutenant is structured as a redemptive thriller, it functions primarily as a freak show with religioso overtones. [30 Dec 1992, Calendar, p.F-7]
The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
Mr. Ferrara has his saving graces, too, the chief one being raw talent, which he continues to display while telling even the most far-fetched story.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
A serious film about the gnawing of conscience and the thirst for redemption, but the tone is so dispassionately vile it may leave viewers shaken or sick. [16 Nov 1992, p.95]
ReelViews James Berardinelli
As good as the lead actor is, he's not enough to save this picture from landing on the scrap-heap of uninspired, derivative, and grotesquely distasteful character studies. Ferrara is definitely no Martin Scorsese.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
It's the first film to include both a cameo appearance by Jesus and a full-frontal nude shot of Harvey Keitel dancing in a drugged stupor. [20 Nov 1992, Life, p.4D]
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Despite a glut of luridness, the story line feels essentially flat, as Keitel stumbles through New York in an immoral, unchanging haze. It is only the strength of Keitel's performance that gives his personality human dimension.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker Michael Sragow
Yes, you get to see Harvey Keitel's penis; the only surprise is that Jesus keeps His under wraps.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Josh C gave it a10:
A hardcore scuzzmeister elevates himself to a new place with this startling, powerfully restrained portrayal of sin and salvation in godless NY. Keitel's inarticulate maudit philosopher is the most uninhabited performance in this disco inferno that also offers relgious hallucinations. As sordid as the material is, the movie isn't oppressive.
Buttered Popcorn gave it an 8:
You gotta see this one to believe it. It's not like other movies. This is the real thing. Probably more interested in being realistic than entertaining, but you leave with the sense that you just saw something very authentic, un-filtered, un-apologetic, and un-assuming. Very memorable movie.
Yoon C. gave it a 6:
A hoary and sleazy rendition of the classic Dostoyevskian scenario, it has Keitel wallowing in the pigsty of suffering and remorse. Interestingly, whatever compelling elements in the movie derive from Ferrara's unrelenting(and exploitative) relish for sleaze and filth; not just a commentary on social disease, the movie is plague-ridden itself. It lacks the transcendental quality of a Bresson film but at least in terms of depicting physical reality, it's probably as grim and accurate as any movie about urban and moral decay.
