Details

Release year: 1992

Storyline

While investigating a young nun's rape, a corrupt New York City police detective, with a serious drug and gambling addiction, tries to change his ways and find forgiveness and redemption.

Top credits

Directors

Abel Ferrara

Writers

Cast

Harvey Keitel — LT
Brian McElroy — LT's Son (#1)
Frank Acciarito — LT's Son (#2)
Peggy Gormley — LT's Wife

See all 53 credits →

Did you know

• Abel Ferrara said a scene that epitomized the movie for him, even though he never got around to filming it, was one where LT robs an electronics store, leaves, then gets a call about a robbery at the electronics store. He responds in an official capacity (they don't recognize him), takes a statement, walks out, and throws the statement in the garbage. "And that to me is the Bad Lieutenant, you know?" Ferrara said.

• According to Abel Ferrara, the film was originally supposed to be funny. "It was always, in my mind, a comedy", Ferrara said. He cited the scene where LT pulls the teenage girls over, as a specific example of how Christopher Walken would have played it, and how Harvey Keitel changed it. "The lieutenant was going to end up dancing in the streets with the girls as the sun came up. They'd be wearing his gun belt and hat, and they'd have the radio on, you know what I mean? But oh my God, Harvey, he turned it into this whole other thing."

• Like many indie-minded directors of low-budget films, Abel Ferrara didn't bother with permits most of the time. "We weren't permitted on any of this stuff", editor Anthony Redman admitted. "We just walked in and started shooting." For the scene in which the strung-out LT walks through a nightclub, they sent Harvey Keitel through an actual club.