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* AwardSnub: Creator/HarveyKeitel's performance is one of the best ever put on film and didn't even get an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward nomination.
* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: After seeing him here, you will be genuinely baffled as to why Creator/HarveyKeitel has never won an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward. Not that anyone ever really doubted his talent before.
* GeniusBonus: Considering all the Catholic imagery in the film, the climax could count as a [[spoiler: RayOfHopeEnding since the sinner begs for forgiveness before he dies, which according to the doctrine could earn him a place in heaven.]]
* HarsherInHindsight: Co-writer Creator/ZoeLund plays the woman the Lieutenant does drugs with. She had a drug problem in real life, and later died of an overdose in 1999.
* JerkassWoobie: The Lieutenant. At first glance, he's an absolutely despicable individual with no redeeming features. Then we see the depths of his self-hatred and despair and just how desperately he wishes he could be a good person but feels that {{God}} has completely abandoned him.
* MoralEventHorizon: The Lieutenant appears to have crossed his long before the movie starts. In the movie itself, he pulls over a couple of teenage girls and forces them to expose themselves and act out various sexual activities while he masturbates, ''and'' ogles a nun who is being medically examined following being gang-raped amongst others, however. That said, he is not a sociopath, he commits his acts not out of pleasure but because he doesn't know how else to act. He is full of deep self-loathing and remorse for what he has done and believes he is beyond any levels of redemption.
* NightmareFuel: The rape of the nun. Coupled by a shot of Christ crying out on the cross.
* TearJerker:
** The Lieutenant's breakdown in the church. The character is ripped apart and shown as a human being desperately trying to find some sort of hope for redemption and who feels completely abandoned by any sort of deity.
** The wordless, anguished wailing coming out of his mouth during that scene (and later on, towards the end of the film) is this on its own.
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