Bad Lieutenant - Port Of Call - New Orleans (Herzog, 2009)[+Extr

Bad Lieutenant - Port Of Call - New Orleans (Herzog, 2009)[+Extras]-aNaRCHo


"No other star can be relied upon to go crazy as prolifically as Nicolas Cage, whose career is a complete pinball machine - one minute heΓΓé¼Γäós doing family blockbuster duties in National Treasure, the next heΓΓé¼Γäós donned a solemn rictus for World Trade Center, and then heΓΓé¼Γäós yelping and running away from bees in Neil LaButeΓΓé¼Γäós laughable remake of The Wicker Man.

The line between good and bad Cage simply doesnΓΓé¼Γäót exist in the way it does for other actors: heΓΓé¼Γäós great when heΓΓé¼Γäós ridiculous, and when the film knows he is. Otherwise heΓΓé¼Γäós just ridiculous.

Crazy is written all over The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ New Orleans, to give Werner HerzogΓΓé¼Γäós certifiable noir drama its full and unwieldy title.

Herzog has borrowed little from Abel FerraraΓΓé¼Γäós altogether dourer 1992 Bad Lieutenant except those two words and a guiding principle of dangerous excess. This means we are, thankfully, spared the sight of Harvey Keitel jiggling his bits.

CageΓΓé¼Γäós Terence McDonagh is a drug-snorting, hunchbacked, epically corrupt homicide cop, whose typical day involves popping in on a scene of multiple immigrant murders, in between a visit to his bookie (Brad Dourif), an attempt to steal requisitioned cocaine from the police property room, and a stop-and-search outside a club with the main objective of getting high in front of the gobsmacked felons.

Plot, in William M FinkelsteinΓΓé¼Γäós dubious screenplay, is not plot but a collision of simultaneous occurrences. ItΓΓé¼Γäós certainly not a thriller.

McDonagh functions as a virtual pimp to his girlfriend (Eva Mendes, sympathetic as a strung-out, kept girl), whom he checks in on from time to time, and we realise that the murder case is mainly there to give Cage a hysterical scene screaming obscenities at two old biddies in a nursing home, one of whose breathing tubes he unplugs to get information. ΓΓé¼┼ôYouΓΓé¼Γäóre the f---ing reason this countryΓΓé¼Γäós going down the drain!ΓΓé¼┬¥ he politely informs her.

Taking this film seriously, as some devout fans have tried to do, is frankly unwise, for all the common ground it shares with the crime fiction of James Lee Burke. ItΓΓé¼Γäós a joke, a riff, almost a spoof. The grimy digital photography achieves a certain flatly fitting, post-Katrina realism, but otherwise CageΓΓé¼Γäós manic grandiosity ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ I particularly loved him yelling ΓΓé¼┼ôTo the break of dawn!ΓΓé¼┬¥ for no clear reason ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ competes with whatever other madness Herzog can chuck at him.

Shea Whigham, as a well-connected thug with a mannered, taunting way of making an exit, wins the supporting derby, though Jennifer CoolidgeΓΓé¼Γäós dishevelled, beer-swilling stepmom runs him a close second.

And forget the humans ΓΓé¼ΓÇ¥ HerzogΓΓé¼Γäós loopiest experiment here is to turn the whole film into a free-form documentary on Louisiana reptile life. Just wait for the trippy cameo he gives a pair of hallucinated iguanas, who turn to the camera rolling their eyes at CageΓΓé¼Γäós deranged routines, keen to show us how it should really be done. "--Tim Robey

EXTRA FEATURES INCLUDE:
-photo gallery (31xjpgs)
-interviews with nicholas cage, eva mendes & werner herzog
-the making of bad lieutenant - port of call new orleans (2009)
-trailers

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