The most Christian production of last year was not Jesus Christ Superstar (although it was an excellent production), or Shadowlands (which was of course also excellent) or The Last Temptation of Christ (although as Chris Thomsen pointed out in Christis this could have been a great opportunity for Christians to talk about Jesus), the most Christian production of last year was a film called Bad Lieutenant. Some people may find this a surprising statement since this was a dark and unpleasant film which carried an 18 certificate and which the Film Society review warned was not for the faint-hearted. However this film showed more about Christianity than any other film I have seen.

Shadowlands, for all its good points, downplayed C S Lewis’ Christianity, and pushed him towards the pigeon-hole of being religious, a term which makes Christian beliefs somehow safe and easy to ignore. The main message of Jesus Christ Superstar as I understand it is “Something really strange happened 2000 years ago and I don’t understand it, here are some of my thoughts on the subject set to music.” As such it is very interesting and the music certainly leads one to wonder how Andrew Lloyd Webber went on to write some of the rubbish that he did later on, but it is certainly not a Christian production. As for The Last Temptation of Christ I found the portrayal of Jesus as a very human being wandering through a jumble of confused quasi-biblical stories more pointless than offensive.

Bad Lieutenant is an incredible film because it shows a picture of a very real and gritty life and of Jesus working in it. The Bad Lieutenant (Harvey Keitel) is an immensely unpleasant man who takes drugs, sleeps with prostitutes, shouts at his wife and kids and is completely corrupt in his job. Change begins when he is called in on the case of the rape of a nun in her church. The Lieutenant is astonished to discover the nun knows who her attackers were, but doesn’t turn them in because of her oath of confession. He is even more astonished when he talks to her later and discovers that she has forgiven them (this is obviously something that she has found difficult to do, there is no fake easiness about this). The entire audience however, is astonished when he turns around in a church and encounters Jesus in person.

I think the Christian message contained in Bad Lieutenant is so well incorporated that I’m going to go through it, so if you were intending to see the film, don’t read the rest of this. The Lieutenant’s conversation with Jesus shows the kind of honest questioning of God’s role in human suffering that Shadowlands only hints at. Keitel swears at Jesus, asking him where he was when the girl was raped and why he didn’t do anything. The film had already shown the answer to this question as during the rape scene (which is horrific without the voyeurism of some films) we see Jesus suffering on the cross. This is the beginning of the Christian response to suffering, that Jesus understands suffering and suffers with us.

The Lieutenant can only remain angry with Jesus for a short time before he realises the reality of the situation. First he says sorry, then admits the state of his life “I’ve done so many bad things.”; he asks Jesus to forgive him, says how he tries to do what’s right but can’t manage it, acknowledges his need of help and then crawls forward and kisses Jesus’ feet. These are all the elements of a Christian conversion: repentance, acknowledgement of sin, asking for forgiveness, acknowledging need of Jesus’ help to follow Him in doing what’s right, and worship of God.

In the rest of the film the Lieutenant finds the rapists and runs them out of town, rather than killing them. Then the next day whilst sitting in a car outside a cinema, he is killed in a drive-by shooting. Earlier in the film Keitel has told a friend how he was never even injured in all his years in the force and that he believes it was because he was blessed by God. Again it is masterfully implied rather than rammed down our throats but we are left with the impression that maybe God shielded the lieutenant from harm until his relationship with God was right again.

Bad Lieutenant is Christian because it is not about religion but about Jesus. We are shown that Jesus works in the real world, that he cares about real people, no matter how unpleasant they might be and that he’s there suffering with us when we suffer. The film portrays Jesus not as a nice pie-in-the-sky person for nice middle-class people, but as a real saviour who is available for everybody.

Sean Wordingham