Bad Lieutenant is a 1992 American crime drama film directed by Abel Ferrara. The film stars Harvey Keitel as the eponymous “bad lieutenant”. The screenplay was written by actress-model Zoë Lund, who also plays a small role in the film. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival. Writing in the New York Times, Janet Maslin praised Ferrara’s talent for making “gleefully down-and-dirty films”, continuing, “He has come up with his own brand of supersleaze, in a film that would seem outrageously, unforgivably lurid if it were not also somehow perfectly sincere.” Desson Howe called the Lieutenant “a notch nicer than Satan” in the Washington Post, and he cites Keitel’s work as the film’s saving grace, “It is only the strength of Keitel’s performance that gives his personality human dimension.”.
