Thursday 27 May 2010

Bad Lieutenant

Harvey Keitel is the idea actor to play the nameless police lieutenant in Abel Ferrara’s most celebrated film Bad Lieutenant (1992). This no holds barred Catholic fable is a character study of a flawed and tormented man who has more vices than a metalworker’s bench. Keitel’s corrupt and depraved policeman takes immense quantities of drugs and alcohol, participates in orgies and steals from, and makes deals with, crooks, a thoroughly evil and nasty man. His opportunity for redemption comes when a nun sets an example of forgiveness following her savage and brutal rape by two local Hispanic men. The film has been likened to dragging its audience through a sewer. Ferrara, who was born in New York where this movie is based, specialises in violent crime dramas with Roman Catholic religious themes of guilt and redemption. Also recommended is his 1996 movie The Funeral which centred on a 1950’s New York mobster family and starred Christopher Walken.

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