Werner Herzog reinvents himself and perhaps the gritty cop genre with his zany “sequel” THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS. One of 2009’s most underrated films, and featuring a freakish and good performance by Nicolas Cage, LIEUTENANT is available today for rent and purchase. A seedy and luridly exploitive reboot of the 1992 Abel Ferrara cult classic merely titled BAD LIEUTENANT, this Herzog reimaging is an impossible to resist guilty pleasure.
Not for everyone and clearly meant as a meditation on the waning cop movie genre, which may have the effect of reinvigorating it, Herzog and Cage whimsically venture into familiar territory, tilted. The setting is New Orleans shortly after the hurricane has ravaged the city. Reminders haunt the set design–houses water stained and marked with that horrid X serve as crime scenes. But the story has a loopy joy that elevates the dark mood. Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a disabled misanthrope cop having been promoted to Lieutenant after “rescuing” a prisoner from the jail as the water rose within his cell. The back injury from the rescue has left him permanently hobbled.
What narrative there is revolves around McDonagh’s struggles to hold it all together. His life is complicated by addiction. Chronic gambler forced into drug use due to his painful and devastating back injury, McDonagh is also investigating the murders of a family by a drug dealer suitably named Big Fate (Xzibit). McDonagh’s investigative technique is by the book in stark contrast to fellow detective Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer), who would be happy extracting confessions by force. McDonagh’s life is in a constant state of chaos. His father (Tom Bower) is a recovering alcoholic and McDonagh’s prostitute girlfriend (Eva Mendes) seeks cocaine to cope with her troubles.
Cage mopes around like a hunchback. And what, at first, is distracting becomes a remarkable character creation. Cage manifests the pain marvelously by shifting his posture from monstrous hunchback to frail old man. By the time Tom Bower shows up playing Cage’s character’s father, Cage has managed to make himself look older and certainly more weary than character actor Bower, who has many years on his younger acting partner.
The entire affair is an opportunity for Cage to become ever more unhinged, reminiscent of his earlier work in films like “Vampire’s Kiss,” “Bringing Out the Dead,” and even his Oscar winning performance in “Leaving Las Vegas.” And he’s damned funny! He keeps laughing uncontrollably when he calls one character “G” repeatedly. It’s infectious. I chuckled and leaned forward in my chair in an attempt to be closer to the action. The movie is vicious fun. And unlike the 1992 Abel Ferrara film that inspired it, instead of an ever-darker descent into Hell, Herzog goes another way. This is the whimsy; the joke is on us, reality bends here.
But is the movie any good? Yes and no. It is well made in a rough gritty style. The iguana POV shots will delight film buffs and irritate others. The change in tone of the film will further irritate literalists. And the movie doesn’t really expand on that one that came before. After all fans will remember what happened to Harvey Keitel’s character in the last BAD LIEUTENANT. And unlike that film, Herzog spares us a full frontal shot of the crippled Cage, although the movie easily receives its “R” rated badge.
Definitely worth renting this week, Werner Herzog seems to always bring us something completely different with each film. His next, MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE, is even presented by David Lynch. The YouTube trailer embed is below and includes a great cast with Michael Shannon and Willem Dafoe leading the way.
