Bad Lieutenant

Infobox Film
name = Bad Lieutenant


caption = Film poster for "Bad Lieutenant"
director = Abel Ferrara
producer = Mary Kane
Edward Pressman
writer = Abel Ferrara
Zoë Lund
starring = Harvey Keitel
Victor Argo
Paul Calderon
Frankie Thorn
Paul Hipp
music = Joe Delia
cinematography = Ken Kelsch
distributor = Lions Gate Films
released = November 20, 1992
runtime = 96 min.
country = USA
language = English
Spanish
imdb_id = 0103759

"Bad Lieutenant" is a 1992 crime drama film directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Harvey Keitel as the eponymous "bad lieutenant". The screenplay was co-written by actress-model Zoë Tamerlis Lund (credited as Zoë Lund). She also played a small role in the film. Lund had been discovered by Ferrara and had starred in his earlier film, "Ms. 45".

Plot

Keitel's nameless character is first seen advising his two sons on how to answer back to their aunt Wendy, which serves as a foreshadowing of his behavior through the rest of the film, in which he takes a twisted delight in humiliating women, most notoriously in the scene where he stops a couple of under-age girls without a driving license and demands sexual favors in exchange for letting them off.

The "Bad Lieutenant" also is a drug-using gambler who finds himself plunged into debt when the New York Mets win the National League Championship Series after trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers and former Met Darryl Strawberry 3-0. The Mets' comeback is a sort of "minor miracle" that defies the Lieutenant's lack of faith and parallels his eventual redemption. The Lieutenant is also regularly linked with the prodigal Strawberry. The turning point in the film arrives when the Lieutenant investigates the rape of a nun and uses this as a chance to confront his inner demons and perhaps achieve redemption.

Alternate versions

Blockbuster Video, the largest video rental company in the United States, had a policy prohibiting the purchase and rental of NC-17 movies. An R rated cut was created specifically so that Blockbuster would rent out the film. The R rated version is a full 5 minutes shorter than the original.

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page got upset when he found out that the song "Kashmir" was sampled in the Schoolly D song "Signifying Rapper", which is played several times during the movie. The sample had not been cleared by Schoolly D's record company. A lawsuit forced the removal of the song from the soundtrack on some VHS and all DVD versions of the film. [cite web |url=http://www.avclub.com/content/node/22601 |title=Interview with Abel Ferrara |accessdate=2008-06-10 |last=Tobias |first=Scott |date=November 27, 2002 |publisher="The A.V. Club"] The song was replaced by a recording of an original Ferrara composition called "Bad Lieutenant" recorded on a cassette walkman and performed live at a late night jam session by Ferrara and Paul Hipp (who also appears as Jesus Christ in the film).

Critical evaluation

Mark Kermode has mentioned that the movie was praised as "a powerful tale of redemptive Catholicism". [cite web |url=http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1978299,00.html |title=Why the Life of Brian beats The Passion of The Christ |accessdate=2008-06-10 |last=Kermode |first=Mark |date=December 24, 2006 |publisher="The Observer" ] Roger Ebert stated that "in the bad lieutenant, Keitel has given us one of the great screen performances in recent years" [cite web |url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930122/REVIEWS/301220301/1023 |title=Review of "Bad Lieutenant" |accessdate=2008-06-10 |last=Ebert |first=Roger |date=January 22, 1993 |publisher="Chicago Sun-Times"]

Remake

"Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" is an upcoming crime film directed by Werner Herzog and starring Nicolas Cage. The film is a remake of the 1992 film of the same name. Filming began in July 2008 in Louisiana. A release date has yet to be scheduled.

References

External links

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