Bad Lieutenant

Branson Reese

The yellow poster they’ve got up for this is insane. Makes it look like a movie where Keitel would say some shit like “You know what they call me? They call me the Bad Lieutenant. Wanna find out why, asshole?” and then shoot a bad guy. If you were put off by this poster don’t worry, it’s actually a profoundly Catholic movie about one of the sweatiest men to ever live pointing a loaded gun at about 3% of NYC and screaming like a flayed animal as he grinds what’s left of his soul into a cheese grater of redemption.

Josh Lewis5.0

"Vampires are lucky, they can feed on others. We gotta eat away at ourselves." or "No one can kill me. I'm blessed. I'm a fucking catholic.”Ferrara spent over a decade honing his grimy-gutter vision of NYC genre cinema and perfected it with this cop drama as self-destructive, junkie stream-of-consciousness character study. Harvey Keitel is asked to nakedly bare his guilty Catholic soul while embodying one of the ugliest, most pathetic cops on one of the most unhinged downward spirals in movie history. Arguably up there for one of the most literal and accurate titles for that reason. When we first meet him, he’s snorting cocaine in his car parked in front of his children’s school, stealing evidence bags of drugs to sell back onto the streets for cash to place bets on the Mets vs. Dodgers (while on a murder crime scene!), and full hog out wailing in front of stoned prostitutes while in a crucifixion pose. And that’s before he starts sexually assaulting teenagers and screaming slurs at the radio and freebasing heroin. What’s powerful about this film is that it is genuinely dirty and depraved in ways only a pair of actual addicts could’ve written and directed, and yet also unbearably, agonizingly sad. Keitel’s performance has a primal torment to it, one moment sadistically impulsive, the next completely anguished and lonely, like every sin he commits (against himself and others) is an expression of pain, a way to feel something. And yet when he’s confronted with a real miracle (the Mets reverse sweeping the Dodgers lol) and an act of true spiritual redemption (a nun forgiving her violent rapists), all he can do is despairingly wail like an animal at Jesus and call him a “ratfuck” and a “cocksucker”. He needs to believe bad people are punished and can’t be forgiven because it justifies his behavior, worldview, and self-imposed suffering… One of the great final shots. “It All Happens Here.” Full discussion on ep 173 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS.

phoebe 💫4.0

Haunting portrayal of what white men do when their favourite sports team loses