This article contains spoilers for the entirety of both Uncut Gems and Bad Lieutenant (1992).When Uncut Gems dropped in 2019, not only did it receive universally excellent reviews, but it reminded the world that Adam Sandler possessed the ability to star in something not awful. So much so that Sandler was quite rightly being touted for an Oscar nomination for his performance, while the Safdie Brothers (as co-writers and directors on this) became a household name overnight.
Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a wheeler dealer jeweler in New York City. Grotesquely addicted to gambling and cheating on his wife with a young flame, Howard happens upon a black opal that he acquired from Ethiopia 17 months ago. On its arrival, he estimates its price at around $15 million and sets the high-strung story in motion…
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Famed for its frenetic energy and uncompromising trajectory on screen, Uncut Gems is like getting on a rollercoaster ride after signing a waiver guaranteeing that you will barf. The biggest treat of the film’s own self-indulgence, Ratner is like a realized and cranked-up-to-11 negative Jewish stereotype; hungry for power and reward, and unable to make the right decision if it means he could get a bigger pay out down the line. On seeing the black opal for the very first time, he returns to reality to tell his disgruntled employee: “Holy sh*t, I’m gonna cum.”
The critics at the time were right. Sandler is infectiously watchable in this role of sleazebag master-of-none. But so was Harvey Keitel when he made pretty much the exact same movie in Bad Lieutenant in 1992.
Good Cop/Bad Cop
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Bad Lieutenant, directed by the infamous and often reviled genius Abel Ferrara (King of New York, The Driller Killer), focuses on Harvey Keitel’s police officer on a case to solve the sexual assault of a nun. In a similarly tour de force performance, we watch as Keitel’s character gambles what he doesn’t have on baseball games and smokes crack in an hour and a half runtime down the gutter.
Bad Lieutenant is a masterpiece in grime. It’s physically dirty, and held together by Keitel’s broken and guilty angst in every damn scene. Oddly, with the perception of current day police forces across the western world and with the rise of ACAB mentalities, Bad Lieutenant with its many scenes utilizing an abuse of police power, has actually (in its own backwards way) aged very well as a dirty memento of 1990s filmmaking. Below we unpack just how much it and Uncut Gems really do have in common.
New York City
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Citing the most obvious comparison, they’re both “New York Films.” Going one further, these movies aren’t merely New York-set, but take place in Manhattan in particular. Creating on home turf, Ferrara and the Safdie brothers are all NYC locals with the former being spoken of in the same breath as fellow New Yorkers Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese for the way they capture the city they call home (albeit without such critical acclaim). Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, the Safdie brothers said:
The city is a fertile ground for mania. You can’t walk from A to B without passing a hundred narratives,” they went on: “We try to allow the scenarios we’re putting the performers in to trigger that feeling that comes with knowing you’re one noise in a cacophony of noises. It allows the privacy to feel yours.
With the cliché of the city feeling like a character of its own, Uncut Gems’ skyscrapers feel suffocating, like a claustrophobic concrete maze, spying down on its ants. Bad Lieutenant’s New York feels like it’s devouring Keitel’s broken cop, as if the landscape and the garbage surrounding him is egging him on to become even more deplorable. Both films also include a heavy amount of actual New York residents in the film as well, which is even more shocking considering Bad Lieutenant’s final scene.
Religion
Formerly Catholic (now Buddhist), Abel Ferrara puts a heavy emphasis on religious themes and Catholicism throughout his film, and the Lieutenant’s case focuses on the rape of a nun no less. In one of Bad Lieutenant’s most famous scenes, Keitel’s character breaks down on the floor of a church, repenting and seeing an apparition of Christ himself. Wracked with stress and guilt, plus hopped up on heroin, he falls apart and asks for forgiveness. The film was banned in Ireland (on two separate occasions) with the argument that the content could “deprave or corrupt persons who might view it.”
In one of the quietest scenes in Uncut Gems, Howard sits down with his family for Passover. In-between the cheating on his wife, this is a moment of family and togetherness. It’s also here that we discover that the man Howard owes money to, Arno, is actually his brother-in-law and that’s why he’s been so lenient on the debts. After, Howard sits around and brags about how much money he’s about to rake in and attempts to call off the inevitable divorce with his wife. Talking to The Wrap, Josh and Benny Safdie said:
The Passover scene in particular makes you realize that Howard is living a double life. His Jewish upbringing is tremendously important to him, but those rituals and his family are merely a formality he must perform to get back to flogging diamonds and making money. On the passover scene in particular, Josh said to Variety: “It’s a pause from everything that’s happening. You see what Howard’s life is other than the part we have in addition to the [basketball] matches. That’s so necessary to understanding the film. If it wasn’t there, I don’t know if other things would click into place.”
JOSH: The idea of jewelry, the idea of a shiny object that can show your worth to somebody — what does that mean in the capitalistic structure? And then there’s the idea of the Church seeing capitalism as a threat to their own myths in the early times, and the Jewish people being relegated to…
BENNY: Nobody wants to touch money, so let them do it.
JOSH: They would try to demonize this concept of capitalism and demonize the Jewish people because they weren’t a part of society, basically saying they are the only ones who are going to profit off money. All these things were in play, and it seemed like a ripe world to investigate. And in a weird way, our dad has other stories that are better than the ones we have in this movie.
Gambling Men
Bad Lieutenant in its opening credits, before we’ve even seen a shot of film, introduces us to a sports cast radio show talking about how the Mets have lost three games in the world series already. Setting up what is to come, this is a losing battle from the very first second. At the following crime scene, betting is talked about for tomorrow’s game by the surrounding police officers. He even places bets on the phone while a felon enacts a crime in front of him on the streets.
Meanwhile in Uncut Gems, having now sold the opal to basketball player Kevin Garnett, and in turn now having the cash to pay back his debt collectors threatening to murder him, Howard cannot help himself but bet once more on Garnett to play the game of his life later that evening. Despite having the funds to essentially sort his life out and move forward, Howard risks his own life for that big score again and again.
In both pictures, these protagonists have an entire disregard for their loved ones and the people around them. All they have, mired in the depths of their addictions and desperation, is just a one-note nearsightedness anticipating that next high. These two men aren’t gambling with cash alone, but their lives are at stake here and getting closer to the end.
American Sports
The Celtics’ Kevin Garnett, playing himself, was featured heavily in Uncut Gems, exchanging lines with Sandler and sets the haphazard story in motion with his obsession for Howard’s new rock. Knowing the character directly makes Howard’s betting feel like more of a shoo-in for success. Incredibly, the basketball performances shown on screen in the film are all real, and took place when Garnett was playing professionally in 2012.
While not having any insider knowledge on sports stars, the Lieutenant’s game is baseball. While listening to a Mets game on the radio, he gets his gun out and blasts the stereo on yet another duff bet. Radio and television sets report on the baseball throughout the film, like a constant anxiety and reminder of what is in his head. And when the cop finally hunts down the rapists, the Mets play the Dodgers on the television as he arrests them. Both of the final bets in these films would be ultimately what get our characters killed as well.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, the loose and weird Nicolas Cage remake, would even have his character directly interacting with a sports star and then later betting on their performance too, in the same way Uncut Gems does.
Both Men Give Away Their Gambling Winnings
In a strange take on Robin Hood, both characters give away their winnings to others. Howard gives his final winnings to Julia (Julia Fox) as a means of making more cash down the road, and the Lieutenant gives his $30 grand to the criminals as an admission of his own guilt and remorse at his life - and as a makeweight, so they never return to the city.
Both Protagonists Are Shot and Killed
In a strange sort of cathartic release for the audience (finally, after endless tension), we know that these guys can’t continue on the route they’re going. The Lieutenant is shot in a drive-by for all the money he owes in a bleak ending that befits the lead up to it, and Uncut Gems pulls the rug from you at the very last. Having finally won big, Howard ecstatically releases the loan sharks he has held prisoner in his shop with a view to repay them - only to be shot in the face for trapping them there.
The Safdies have made the comparison of their Uncut Gems to Bad Lieutenant on Chapo Trap House, going so far as to read their conversations with Abel Ferrara (who hated that Howard dies) on the show, so they are aware that the likeness between the two films is positively uncanny. It could be said that Uncut Gems is to Judaism what Bad Lieutenant is to Catholicism, two fascinating reflections of a cultural pedigree seen through the eyes of a disintegrating man. One thing is for certain though, both of these are immediate modern day classics in American cinema that put a magnifying glass to the seedier aspects of the human condition and what power and addiction can do to a person.
