Bad Lieutenant is not a movie. Not in the technical sense. There's no real beginning; we're thrust head-first into Harvey Keitel's life, with the slimmest of explanations on who Bad Lieutenant (he isn't even given a name) is beyond drug addictions, gambling, paying for hookers, being an evil man. Oh, and being a cop.

And there's no real ending either. Certainly not a Hollywood ending. Watching it through, you can kind of figure out how it'll go.

What you're left with is a middle. Ongoing throughout the film is a fictional World Series final between the Dodgers and the Mets. The Dodgers are ahead 3 games to none as we start the film, and gradually the Mets win game-after-game. It serves as slight symbolism for Keitel's Bad Lieutenant, as he starts off as a strong, albeit crooked, cop with his feet firmly planted two steps ahead of everyone else. Then everything unravels.

Amidst the evil doings of Bad Lieutenant (including a ten minute scene in which Bad harrasses two teenage girls by asking them to simulate sexual acts while he masturbates outside their car) is the rape of a nun. This plays heavily into Bad Lieutenant's attempt at redemption, including several scenes with religious overtones.

I won't spoil everything, although there isn't a ton to spoil. It plays like a Kubrick film at times, in as much as it's something you need to see, start-to-finish, and think about before you pass judgment. Some will love it, some will hate it. It never tries to be something in between for the casual moviegoer. Like I said, no beginning and no true ending. Just a middle. But man does it stick with you. It did for me anyway.

And enough can't be said about Harvey Keitel here. He's at his best as Bad. He verges so close to the edge that you forget it's a movie sometimes. He bares it all --literally-- which is enough for kudos in my book.

Grade: A

I can see where some would be bored by it, or would simply hate it. But everything worked for me. It's the kind of movie I want to watch right away again, knowing what I know about the later parts of the film.

Thanks as always, trixster. I wish I could request some movies that more people have seen.

Yeah? And?

Saw and enjoyed this when it first came out - - now it mostly just makes me wish we still had actors like Harvey Keitel in his prime.

Looking through his profile post-Bad, and he really dropped off after this. Haven't seen him in stuff like U-571, National Treasure or the American Life on Mars, but his prime came and went in the 70s and 80s. Too bad. He would be great on a Sopranos-type show now.

Bad Lieutenant is a movie. In the technical sense.
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His last great performance was in Ulysses' Gaze (although it's far from the greatness of Angelopoulos former films as O Thiasos and so on).

Fair enough sir. I appreciate that you read my "review".

I read it and declared it as bullshit. Your explanation for the technical sense of what is and what is not a film is ridiculously lousy bullshit. That's what it is.

That's why I put the word "review" in quotation marks. I understand when someone's calling me an idiot. Doesn't mean I'm a complete idiot, sir.

If you think you've insulted me by telling me my review was bullshit three times, go ahead and think it. If you have mistaken me for a professional film reviewer, I do apologize. I didn't mean to give any indication to suggest it. Kind of like the indication you gave that you're an asshole with too much time on your hands to pick apart someone's meaningless review of a little-seen movie in a tiny corner of a message board on the internet.