THE BAD LIEUTENANT
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1993 Max Hoffmann
Rating: NC-17
Max Reax = 0 on scale of 0 --- 10
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sux must see
Avoid this film at all costs (even eventual cable/video rental) because it is an overinflated, crashing bore! Roger Ebert gave it "highest rating," and the "little man" in the Chronicle is falling out of his chair. Ironically, it's playing at the 438-seat Gateway in San Francisco, where ridiculous reviews are causing long lines, and sell-outs, adding to the myth that this is a real find. (Hey, it fooled me!)
It's actually "R"-rated content, but because Americans (or mainly the white males that run Hollywood) are uncomfortable with extended views of another man's penis, it copped an NC-17. Fortunately, teenagers won't be subjected to the same eyelid-tugging snooze-pusher that I went through. There is also the controversy of a nun being raped on an altar, and the "F"-word in grafitti on the altar.
Why is this film a bore? 80% of it is watching Harvey Kietel snort coke in a variety of locations, or shooting up junk and going comatose. We never learn his, or most of the characters' names. I think the film could have been more interesting or worthwhile if it were set earlier in the Lieutenant's addiction cycle when there were enough brain cells for him to show some character development or motivation. Neither are present in this film. What Ebert lauded as Keitel's "performance of a lifetime" amounts to a convincing portrayal of a junkie cop trying to stay upright, negotiate walking down stairs, driving a car, and supposedly acting "normal" enough to keep his job.
It is inconceivable that non-addicted cops would entrust tens of thousands of dollars in World Series bets to anyone in Kietel's medical condition.
What about the "nun" thing? Unless you are a vitriolic "recovering Catholic," (who gets off on seeing sacred icons violated) or a "good Catholic" (who can't go to this film anyway,) you'll probably "feel" absolutely nothing during the violation of the nun on the altar. It is incredibly stagy, and has the suspicious look of gratuitous sex tossed in to keep the crowd awake. The nun and her violators are made to look way too appealing, and due to colored filters and moody, jumpy photography, you get the eerie feeling you just turned on one of Cinemax's softcore 1 AM epics. One of the rapists has the same kind of muscled nude back you see on the cover of many Romance Novels. (Maybe they're trying for a title like "Love's Burning Chalice"?)
The nun's refusal to identify her attackers (who are students from her class whom she recognized) is supposedly the crux of the film and its denouement. Unfortunately, the actress who plays the nun (we don't find out her character's name either) is merely gorgeous and can't act. Her "Jesus would have seen it this way," stance is about as believable as Harvey Kietel escaping the notice of internal affairs. Harvey Kietel's "big moment" is when he completely "loses it," has a mental breakdown in church, and while supplicant on his knees actually "sees" Jesus and starts swearing at him (another reason for the NC-17, I suppose.) Unfortunately, you have to repress the urge to laugh because it's nearly a carbon copy of Patty Duke's overblown final scene as "Neely O'Hare" in VALLEY OF THE DOLLS where she falls to her knees in the alley and cries "God? God? Is that *you*?" (VALLEY is coming to San Francisco's Castro Monday January 11 and to the Sashmill in Santa Cruz Sunday January 31.)
I think this film falls into the same class as LAST TANGO IN PARIS" an overated bore of a film that might provide enough prurient interest for some middle-aged critics to "get off on," but for the rest of us, tune into Cinemax at 1 AM and you get a whole lot more of the same thing and at least the bodies are worth looking at. (P.S. That really is Harvey Kietel's body on the poster/movie ad, unfortunately its attached to Harvey Kietel's face!)
If this is the director's way of therapizing as a recovering Catholic, we can only wish that he had taken Sinead O'Conner's route, which was a lot quicker, and like jerking a Band-Aid off a hairy arm, a lot less painful than this tepid, two-hour tug.
-- Max Hoffmann .
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