Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans

Today I was thinking about what are some great films that I've seen recently.  I saw recently the film called Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans. The film was both absurd, sick, funny, twisted, you name it.

It explained why he did bad things in the first place to a certain extent, and also showed him to be in some respects a sympathetic character.  I thought it did an excellent job in that respect.  It also narrowly confined the subject matter to his psychological state, and the relations between him, his wife, father, and other policemen.  It also had a interesting twist.  You expected things to come crashing down on him but instead there was a kind of happy ending, although even that was spoiled, yes he did get better in some ways, but in the end he is back were he started. 

Literally the film also returns to beginning since he meets the guy who he injured himself trying to save, the guy in turn takes him to an aquarium away from a mountain of cocain.

The physical explanation for his psychological condition is also great, his injury helps explain his descent into madness, drug use, and bad behavior.  Morally it doesn't take a side on whether he is a good or bad person, although he saves the criminal from being shot near the end, but then he is back to shaking down party goers.

It's quite rare that a film doesn't take a moral stance, and yet is not celebrating some pathology.  The Saw movies seem to be the latter.  I would say that film Crash is similar in that respect for developing a problem, a way of looking at things.

It is always much more interesting to draw ones own moral conclusions when watching a film rather than leave it to the film maker to explain everything.  The film Inception was extremely quite shallow in this respect.  It didn't really trust the viewer to make up their own mind.

If you compare it to Cube, which also had a kind of universe with multiple levels, there was at least real dialogue.  The characters talked as if they were all trapped in a elevator, but the world was fantastical, yet theoretically not possible.

By contrast, Inception had to explain each element.  The characters were dream builders, part of a secret society of people able to go into the dream world, professional globe trotting specialists.  They were basically similar to highly paid multinational employees, flying around the world working for huge business tycoons.

They were working for a client, the main character was all business, get the target to think a certain thing.  But, who cares, the only element that made you care slightly was that he was framed for murder.  So you had this element of  The Fugitive.

Personally I had no reason to care about this character, other than that he was a famous person.  Contrast this with Catch Me If You Can, or The Titanic.  Both effectively explained the characters motivations.  One a kid running away from his father, another a young hobo trying his luck.