Bad Lieutenant

Ferrara's lurid sweaty mess somehow comes off as a sincere expression of Catholic guilt & spiritual torment in its most violent & destructive extreme. It's a real character/mood piece in which everything revolves around a core idea often to brilliant effect, but the narrative can feel as redundant as some of the symbolism & dramatic effects. Uses baseball, church & police as cornerstones of some depraved American purgatory that incidentally reaches its miserable conclusion under a Trump sign.

A superb movie in which all the elements from conception to execution seem to have come together very fortuitously (Zoë Lund probably deserves a large portion of the credit, as well of course as Keitel). Note that the soundtrack originally included the Schoolly D song "Signifying Rapper" but this has since been removed due to a pathetic copyright lawsuit brought by plagiarist Jimmy Page. This removal significantly affects the quality of the film. Scorsese's fifth best film of the 1990s.

An NC-17 Christian film. That turns off nigh-about everyone. Add to that the required existentialism and a full frontal of a drugged-out, whimpering Keitel, and I'm surprised I can find it at Blockbuster. Its Christian quandary: God redeems anyone, no matter what, without penance or merit. And this is the perfect illustration of that spiritual conundrum, personified by Keitel.

A tragic portrait of one man trapped in the unforgiving clutches of baseball fanaticism.

Unexpectedly slow & atmospheric character study in a decadent time and place. Keitel's search for transcendence through profane and sacred things (church) leads him to the final act of sacrificing his life to the young Puerto Ricans. Ferrara's style is an odd combination of B-Movie, crime genre and transcendental style based on banality and sacrifice. One of those unique characters and films, which stays with you no matter how perfect or flawed it's executed. "Show me how you suck a guys cock."