The film stars Harvey Keitel as the title character "bad lieutenant" as well as Victor Argo and Paul Calderón.

After dropping off his two young sons at Catholic school, an unnamed NYPD police lieutenant snorts cocaine before driving to the scene of a double homicide in Union Square.

The lieutenant then tracks down a drug dealer and gives him a bag of cocaine from a crime scene; he has a small bag of crack cocaine fronted and smokes some while the dealer promises to give him the money he makes from selling the drugs in a few days.

The next morning, the lieutenant learns that he has lost a bet on a National League Championship Series baseball game between the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

At another crime scene, the lieutenant rifles through the victim's car and finds a hidden stash, which he stuffs in his coat pocket.

Aware that they are unlicensed, the lieutenant extorts the girls by having one of them bend over and pull up her skirt and the other to simulate oral sex while he masturbates.

In the resulting emotional breakdown, the lieutenant sees an apparition of Jesus and tearfully curses him before begging forgiveness for his crimes and sins.

[4] Lund also claimed that she wrote the screenplay of Bad Lieutenant alone and believed that Ferrara did not put much effort in his contributions in the film.

[5][6] According to Jonas Mekas, Lund's ex-boyfriend Edouard de Laurot was reported to have written most of the film's script.

[citation needed] Christopher Walken was originally going to portray the titular character, having previously worked with Ferrera on King of New York.

The scene in which the Lieutenant pulls over two young girls and masturbates in front of them is almost completely absent from the Blockbuster version.

The original theatrical version featured the song "Signifying Rapper" by Schoolly D. The song was removed from some editions of the film's home video release due to the unauthorized use of a re-recorded guitar riff from Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir", which the rapper did not license.

The site's critics consensus reads: "Bad Lieutenant will challenge less desensitized viewers with its depiction of police corruption, but Harvey Keitel's committed performance makes it hard to turn away.

[20] Roger Ebert gave the film four stars and stated that "in the Bad Lieutenant, Keitel has given us one of the great screen performances in recent years".