Movie News
Bad Idea Surrounding Bad Lieutenant?
Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 30, 2007
In researching this story I was a bit surprised to find that Harvey Keitel’s Bad Lieutenant has a lot of positive reviews. You won’t count mine among them. It’s a little piece of cop drama about a, well, bad police lieutenant trying to find a nun’s rapist. Throw in some alcoholism, gambling addiction, and a full front shot of Keitel’s package while he’s drunk and crying and you get the idea. It was rated NC-17.
And obviously, as our good friends at JoBlo have pointed out, Hollywood is interested in remaking it. Say what!? Now this movie has little to absolutely no reason to be made. No one is clamoring for more. Most people haven’t seen it or don’t remember it. And Harvey Keitel doesn’t want in on it. So the only positive thing about the movie to begin with has jumped ship.
JoBlo tells us that the planned remake would focus on our titular bad lieutenant make new sorts of lurid and bad decisions. Hollywood, do yourself a favor - leave the Bad Lieutenant script at home and just write up something new, hopefully without as much crying or as much penis.
On The Side: Premiere magazine voted this one of the top 25 “Most Dangerous Movies,” probably because it showed a dirty copy doing bastardly things and nuns being raped, though I’d like to think that seeing Harvey Keitel do the fullmonty had something to do with it.
Read more articles by Robert Fure
2 Comments
August 30th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
This is such an old flick, and not even very good in its day…why are you reviewing it?!
August 30th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
This remake makes about as much sense as the forthcoming proposed remakes of “Straw Dogs” or “Cannibal Holocaust.” All three of these films were shocking in their day, and are still hard to watch.
That’s not to say that they’re not good. They’re just the kinds of movie one suffers through and appreciates, but doesn’t “enjoy” per se. Unless one is a fucking psychopath.
Hollywood will have to either go really dark to try to upstage their previous incarnations, or Hollywood will wuss out and deliver tepid, politically correct reinterpretations. Either route will cheapen the memory of these films.