Harvey Keitel plays a nameless corrupt New York police lieutenant (all of the characters in the movie do not seem to have names) who struggles with his personal demons and various addictions. In the opening scene, the Lieutenant (known only as LT) drives his two twin sons from their house somewhere in suburban New York City (either the Bronx or Queens) to their Catholic elementary school where he firmly tells them to respect one another and not to get into trouble. After dropping off his two sons at their school, the Lieutenant snorts some cocaine that he has on him.Afterwards, the Lieutenant drives into Manhattan to a crime scene at Battery Park where a murder has just taken place. The Lieutenant asks a beat cop on the scene for a few pointers to which baseball game he plans to place some bets on. Following the beat cop's tip, the Lieutenant phones one of his many bookies and places a bet for the L.A. Dodgers playing the New York Mets in the upcoming National League Championship. But when he later overhears over his car radio that the Mets beat the Dodgers by 3-0, he finds himself even deeper in debt.That night, the Lieutenant responds to a call on a robbery in Korea town where he confronts three black hoodlums whom a Korean grocery store manager accuses of shoplifting. While sending the manager away for a minute, the Lieutenant tells the two thugs to give him the money they stole from the owner or he will be forced to arrest them. The two African-American thugs have no choice, but to comply and the Lieutenant forces them to run. The Lieutenant then buys some cocaine from a local Hispanic dealer in East Harlem, then buys some heroin from his crack-snorting mistress Zoë at her apartment. He then picks up two prostitutes where he has a three-way with them while high on drugs.The next day, the Lieutenant is confronted by a mob flunky demanding that he pay him for over $150,000 of losses within three days. The Lieutenant then seeks to get away from his troubled home life of his wife who wants more attention to raise their four children, including their newborn baby. At a local convenience store, more of the Lieutenant's debauchery continues when he robs a thug who steals from the store of all his cash and drugs. That evening, the Lieutenant pulls over a car for speeding and when he finds that the two young teenage girls whom are driving have no drivers licenses, forces one of them to simulate performing fellatio on him while he masturbates right in front of them in order to let them go.The following morning, the Lieutenant is assigned a case where a young nun was gang-raped by two thugs in a small Catholic church in East Harlem. Investigating the scene, and visiting the traumatized nun at the hospital -- he stands in the doorway leering at her naked body while she's being tended to by nurses and a doctor. The Lieutenant asks her for a statement, but she refuses to give one.The Lieutenant continues his decent into more drugs and debauchery with more heroin shooting with his mistress Zoë, and more cocaine smoking/sniffing binges to drown his sorrows and worry about his debt with the mob bookies whom are now after him.Meanwhile, the Nun gives a statement about her ordeal but then shocks the press when she says that she will not press charges against the two thugs who broke in and raped her and stole from the church because of her Catholic belief in God. She tells the press that she has forgiven the men who raped her. Angered by the Nun's refusal to cooperate with the investigation, the New York Archbishop and the Police Commissioner announce a $50,000 reward to the person or group who finds and captures the two men who raped the nun. The Lieutenant hears about the reward and realizes it would solve most of his debt problems with the mob.The lieutenant's personal descent continues to grow worse with further bets on the World Series that he can't pay and more drugs and drinking. At one point while listening to the game in his car, he hears a play that further ruins his chances of winning his bets and shoots his car stereo. To cover for it he starts up the sirens and speeds off, yelling at the radio.After tracking down several false leads and dealing with another encounter with the mob flunky to pay up what he owes them, the Lieutenant pays another visit to the Nun at the church where he again tries to persuade her to help with his investigation. The Nun again refuses saying that she has forgiven her attackers and she tells the Lieutenant that he should embrace his own demons in order find a path to forgive the evil and find redemption. After the Nun leaves him alone, the Lieutenant has an emotional meltdown and he thinks he sees an image of Jesus standing before him where the cop swears at Him and says that he has only wished to find redemption, but cannot find the right path.Just then, an elderly black woman enters the church holding a brass chalet which she is claiming to 'return' it to it's rightful place. The woman tells the Lieutenant that she knows who the two thugs who broke in and raped the Nun are. The woman says that on the previous day, two Hispanic youths came into the pawn shop where her husband works and attempted to pawn a chalet for cash, which the woman recognized as being from the very same church because she is a regular attendee. The elderly black woman takes the Lieutenant down the street and points out the apartment building where the two thugs reside since they also gave their address when they pawned the stolen items from the church. The Lieutenant breaks into the apartment and arrests the two Hispanic thugs. Handcuffing them, he takes them down to his car and drives them around the city threatening to kill them for sexually violating a nun and also talks about his own brand of justice for what they did.However, just when it looks that he is about to execute them, the Lieutenant breaks down and instead drives the two thugs to the local bus station where he uncuffs them and buys them each a one-way bus ticket to leave New York forever and tells them that as part of his path to redemption, he is letting them go and forgiving them for their crimes just like the nun did.After seeing them away on the bus, the Lieutenant returns to his car still parked outside the bus depot where he seems to wait. Just then, a car pulls up alongside and an unseen mob hit man shoots the Lieutenant to death, and then speeds away just as a crowd gathers around the Lieutenant's parked car, with the dead Lieutenant still inside.
Output: Question: Whose confession does he overhear?, Answer: Eavesdropping on the nun's confession.