Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Movie Review

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

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Written by: William M. Finkelstein (screenplay)
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Russell M. Haeuser, Val Kilmer, Xzibit, Fairuza Balk, Michael Shannon
Rated: R
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Plot
Terence McDonagh is a cop with drug and gambling problems trying to solve a crime in post-Katrina New Orleans.  He's willing to compromise to get drugs and arrests. He'll even beat up old ladies.

Verdict
This should be a good movie, but somehow it falls into so bad it's good. That or it's just bad. There is a disconnect between the story and the main character. Cage plays McDonagh much like all of his characters, as some kind of cartoon.
Skip it.

Review
Despite the similarities to Harvey Keitel's Bad Lieutenant (1992), Herzog claimed this was not a remake and he had never heard of the original movie or director Abel Ferrara.

It's difficult to take Nicolas Cage seriously at this point in his career. A drug addled crazy person is in his wheelhouse as a caricature, not as a believable protagonist. Cage plays a bad cop. A cop that's bad at his job and breaks the law, every law. This is a drug fueled romp of a movie that would be perfect for Cage if it skewed farther to comedy. It's easy to buy Cage as deranged, it's more difficult to believe he's a cop.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans  - What is this movie?

Cage truly seems like he's on something, which plays to the character but is also theatrical and silly. The movie tries to imagine every crime a cop could commit and shoehorns it into the movie. How did Cage even find the star of the Louisiana college football team? He then black mails the player into throwing a game so he can pay off his gambling debts. This movie has dirty cops, drug dealers, bookies, prostitutes. They throw everything in.

Why does Cages have a big revolver sticking out of the top of his pants for almost the entire movie? Does he not have a holster? How does he sit down?

He's trying to solve a crime, but at the same time will do anything to get drugs for himself and his girlfriend. At one point bad guys threaten to shoot a dog he found. In many movies, shooting the dog is unforgivable. Cage claims he doesn't care, and this is one of the few movies where I actually believe the character. Also, no one shoots a dog. Despite all of his issues, this cop does want to solve the crime. Well he wants to clear the case. as long as any bad guy is locked up for the murders he is okay with that.

I understand the movie is trying to get into Cage's character's crack addled mind but those sequences make the movie goofy, not atmospheric. There is a hand held camera alligator point of view sequence that looks terrible. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) did the atmospheric drug romp really well, this does not.

There is a silver spoon subplot with Cage and his girlfriend that makes as little sense as this sentence. This is such a strange movie due to the mismatch of the serious tone of the plot and the unintentionally comedic execution. Cage isn't the only weak link, the directing caters to crazy Cage.

The ending, well the first ending, shows Cage and his family clean and doing well after Cage's promotion to Captain. It betrayed the entire movie, until in the next scene we realize Cage isn't clean. He meets the person he saved near the beginning who wants to help Cage turn his life around.