Bad Lieutenant (1992), Ordet (1955), and Flannery O'Connor

No one who has seen it is indifferent to Bad Lieutenant (1992). Calling the film a portrait of a corrupt cop is like referring to the pandemic as a brief interruption of our normal activities. Harvey Keitel plays the titular but unnamed law enforcement official who does it all: snorts cocaine before arriving on the site of a double murder, hands a dealer a bag of drugs confiscated from a crime scene, gets wasted and joins a couple of women for a threesome, you name it. And significantly, the lieutenant derives no pleasure from any of these acts.