Review: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Posted November 20, 2009 12:00 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was after the third appearance of a boom mic that I realized Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is not supposed to be a serious film. It is indeed a satire of the dirty cop genre, and a good one at that. Going forward with that view early on helped make it a much more enjoyable experience than if I bought it as a straight movie.
The film begins with Detective Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) saving a prisoner from a holding cell in the basement of a police station just after Hurricane Katrina has hit. As the water rises and threatens to drown the caged man, McDonagh jumps in like a hero while his partner Stevie (Val Kilmer) discourage the courageous act (he would rather watch the prisoner drown than risk his own life). Six months later and McDonagh is promoted to Lieutenant and we learn that in the process of saving the man he pulled his back out and is now hooked on painkillers and other powdered drugs for the chronic pain.
His first case as Lieutenant is a mass murder where five people, including a child, are dead. While hunting down the suspects he snorts copious amounts of cocaine and heroin, visits his prostitute girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes) for more drugs, places bets with his bookie Ned (Brad Dourif), hallucinates iguanas during a stakeout and, in one of the most outrageous turning points, he pulls over a young couple outside of a club and proceeds to smoke crack and have sex with the female while pointing a gun at the male.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a very dirty, sleazy movie, yet Cage’s jaw-dropping psychotic portrayal of McDonagh makes it brilliantly funny. It’s a reminder of how good he is when he puts his heart into a film role and doesn’t just hold out his hands for money. This is the Lord of War, Leaving Las Vegas, Wild at Heart Cage; not the Ghost Rider, Knowing, National Treasure Cage. This is his movie and without him it would be nothing.
Director Werner Herzog claims this is not a remake of Harvey Keitel’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant but fans will no doubt see many similarities. And although it doesn’t come close to the same shock and awe as the previous version, it does hold its own and is a nice treat for cinema-goers expecting the typical cop drama.
*** out of 5 stars
Rated R
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Official Site IMDb
brian.mckechnie@citynews.rogers.com
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Top image: Val Kilmer and Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Courtesy VVS Films.
