Movie review: Bad Lieutenant
What’s the expression, “In for a penny, in for a pound”?
How about in for a nickel bag? Or a few ounces? That seems more appropriate for Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.
However you put it, you need to know this going in: Nicolas Cage is so gleefully over-the-top as the troubled cop of the title that you will either be repulsed or fascinated by his performance and, since it lives or dies by it, the movie itself.
I’m in. Say what you will about Cage, but he gives himself to roles like this without reservation. When he fails, he does so spectacularly. When he succeeds, he’s remarkable.
So you need someone to play Lt. Terence McDonagh, a New Orleans cop with a drug habit, a predilection for sex to get said drugs, and the occasional habit of seeing iguanas that no one else can see?
Cage is your man.
And Werner Herzog is the director to push him even further.
About the title: This movie has nothing to do with Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film of the same name, starring Harvey Keitel, other than they’re both about a couple of crazily downward-spiraling police officers.
This film is set in a scarred, post-Katrina New Orleans, but in many ways, it looks and feels like a throwback to the ’70s, when it’s easier to imagine a film this, well, odd being made.
McDonagh is trying to solve a gangland-style massacre, more or less. Following the trail leads McDonagh, happily, to various drug dealers and assorted bad guys. McDonagh’s as bad as they are, if not worse. When the bad guys realize you’re crazier than them, you’ve probably achieved some sort of investigative breakthrough, though one no sane police manual would recommend.
As he courts Big Fate (Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner), a gang leader who knows the identity of the killer, McDonagh tries to keep his hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendes) happy, which usually means supplied with drugs, and his bookie (Brad Dourif) at arm’s length.
Pay attention all the way through. Herzog, working from a script by William M. Finkelstein, takes the film into unexpected places, especially in the final act. And in the last scene, Cage does something with such subtlety, yet such intensity, that it’s funny, until you realize it’s chilling.
Forget the National Treasure movies, Mr. Cage. All is now forgiven.
Movie times for Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
More movie listings
