Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

2009 "The only criminal he can't catch is himself."
6.6| 2h2m| R| en| More Info
Released: 20 November 2009 Released
Producted By: Saturn Films
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Terrence McDonagh is a New Orleans Police sergeant, who recieves a medal and a promotion to lieutenant for heroism during Hurricane Katrina. Due to his heroic act, McDonagh injures his back and becomes addicted to prescription pain medication. He then finds himself involved with a drug dealer who is suspected of murdering a family of African immigrants.

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Reviews

Diagonaldi Very well executed
Pluskylang Great Film overall
Animenter There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.
Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Michael Ledo Imagine Dirty Harry with a bad coke habit, played by Nicolas Cage in New Orleans. Cage gives us an outstanding performance as someone who goes though those violent coke induced mood swings. The iguana which appears in the movie from time to time is symbolic of the metaphor "monkey on the back." Cage is investigating a brutal family execution and interweaves his personal failings into the process. His girlfriend is a prostitute who he protects and supplies drugs. He has a gambling habit, and owes money (bets too much on LSU) and of course steals from the evidence locker.He also shakes down people for information, even grandmothers. Makes Dirty Harry look like a sissy. Lots of drug use, bad language, sexual situations, and some violence.Good story. Plot fairly simple to follow. The movie, at time, has the feel of a dark comedy.
eddiez61 Nic Cage is a living, breathing cartoon character of a personality and actor as well, and the best filmmakers seem to grasp intuitively that the best way to have Nic in a movie--the only way, really--is to first be sure they've got for him an appropriately comical, ironic, melodramatic or surreal story. This one happens to be all four, to a serious degree. It also features compelling and offbeat relationships and unexpected, wild action, all of it slyly hypnotic and even gripping. It'd be fair to describe this film as a tense crime drama that's regularly relieved by comical gags if it weren't for the fact that the perfectly timed humorous beats are so damn hysterical--and so weird. The outrageously absurd, profoundly wacky moments so thoroughly overwhelm the more somber, dark and disturbing moments--not in quantity but in sublime intensity--that they thoroughly dislodge us from any dependable emotional or psychological perch and it's hard to know with any confidence from instant to instant what we're expected to feel or think, which, apparently, is very much intentional. We're being toyed with, and not coyly but blatantly, maybe even wickedly.The director, Werner Herzog, is a connoisseur of contradiction and paradox as he's eloquently and masterfully demonstrated in many of his films, such as the bleakly absurd "Aguirre, the Wrath of God," or the incredibly preposterous "Fitzcarraldo," or the often delightfully campy "Nosferatu the Vampyre" where subtle humor is so effectively collided against genuinely poignant drama. But this one's on a whole different level, and it's entirely the fault of Nic Cage and his nearly demented, turbocharged performance as an increasingly crazed, spiraling out of control, drug addicted crooked cop.As his character's condition deteriorates and his affliction and corruption possess him to the core not only does Nic begin to distort his appearance and posture to match his deepening pathology but his voice as well becomes increasingly warped as it grows more high pitched and nasal, as though the mounting stress is compressing him like a squeeze toy. It's beyond silly but it somehow works, at least on the level of his character's distorted, perverted perspective. Often the soundtrack is emphatically offbeat, quirky and disruptive, working in counterpoint to the pace and tone of the unfolding action, but the musical score might then quickly shift to more traditional rhythms more in sync with the apparent mood of the scene which only renders those moments all the more unsettling. It's a very subversive technique inciting a creeping, crawling uncertainty deep within the subconscious, at a primal level; a sincerely surreal experience punctuated so ridiculously, so blatantly by the hallucinogenic appearances of those damn freaky iguanas. So freaky... It's disorienting--in the best way--to be so constantly jerked, jolted and yanked around by a movie, especially when it's all being done so well, so confidently. Werner Herzog has crafted a sincerely bizarre, wild ride; a rare and special cinematic experience that will appeal to--and thrill--aficionados of superior, if idiosyncratic storytelling. Very much recommended above all else for its uniquely unorthodox, unhinged vibe.
rooprect Herzog's popularity, and some might say his entire career, came from his long partnership with the incomparable firestorm of an actor Klaus Kinski. In Herzog's own words, their "joint derangement must have converged to create great art". Whether Herzog was referring to Kinski's explosive fury on screen or something more insidious such as the real life allegations that Kinski sexually molested his daughter from age 5 to 19, we don't know. My point is that Herzog had the ability to draw on Kinski's madness & evil to create some very memorable films about precisely that: madness & evil ("Aguirre", "Fitzcarraldo", "Nosferatu"). After Kinski died, Herzog's films were considerably less explosive although he still pushed those dark themes.Here in "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans", once again we get the familiar themes of madness and depravity, and although it doesn't quite strike that horrifying Kinski vein, it has moments of brilliance thanks to an excellent acting job by Nicolas Cage.We also get, at the core, a well-written story by William Finkelstein who wrote extensively for gritty TV crime dramas like "NYPD Blue", "Law & Order" and "L.A. Law".It's the story of a rogue New Orleans cop who is investigating a series of murders while he himself flirts with depravity as he battles with drug-related issues and moral degradation. What's important to note is the familiar Herzoggian theme of madness and the thrill of of evil on the human soul. Cage plays a detective who, on the surface, is a cool-tempered & intelligent hero, a likable guy really. But he begins to descend into depravity, and there are 1 or 2 moments of outright sickening behavior (such as falsely arresting, then having sex with a woman in exchange for letting her go). This is not a film for the morally faint of heart. It is intended to morally shock us, and that it does.But what's interesting is the way Cage's portrayal remains heroic (the good guy), unlike Kinski's villainous portrayals (the monster). In the past, Herzog-Kinski films presented us with a vision of evil which thrilled us in a guilty way, as if we're passing a gory car wreck. Here we have the much more comfortable yet equally challenging perspective of watching a good guy who can't resist the thrill of depravity. So from a safer distance from evil, we can watch the story unfold.I don't know if it's that subtle thematic difference, or simply the idea that Nicolas Cage is not an alleged incestuous child abuser, that made me enjoy this film in a lighter way. I should note that this film also carries much more humor and playful dark comedy than any of Herzog's other films I've seen. In the 2nd half of the film, Cage's frenetic portrayal of a coked-up, cracked-up drug fiend was done a comedic air... along with some hilarious surreal visuals & music (the break dancing scene had me laughing out loud).Ultimately, we get a "morality tale" which is very gritty, very comic, very morally disturbing, and yet it doesn't leave us with a sick feeling like certain other films which explore the evil nature of human beings. In fact, with the exception of the disturbing sexual bribe scene, "Bad Lieutenant" could almost be watched as a dark comedy from start to finish. It's a different approach for Herzog, one which would be great to see him explore in the future.Final note worth mentioning, since Herzog's early films were notorious for having real animal abuse/killing that may disturb some viewers: Yes, there is a scene of a dead alligator with her guts spilled out, and yes it is real. But according to the DVD extras, the alligator carcass was purchased from (presumably) New Orleans animal control because it was a "nuisance alligator eating people's pets and stuff." I think there was an American Humane "no animals harmed" disclaimer at the end of the movie.
Cs_The_Moment As the title suggests, this is an unconventional film about an unconventional police lieutenant, and it's quite hard to pin down an opinion on it because it is unlike anything I have ever seen in terms of style and story.Having seen several Nicholas Cage films, I was fully expecting to see him play his typical worldly-wise middle aged man role despite having read the synopsis (think the National Treasure [2004; 2007] and Knowing [2009]). I was surprised to see him play a completely different character and it was oddly refreshing to see him break away from his typecast. Cage is completely believable as an erratic drug addict, his odd behaviour and strange visions of iguanas (when you see the film, you'll understand) strangely draw you in to his rough, "trippy" world. The film often loses you, at points it is hard to understand how the current scene links to the previous, but that is all part of the effect. Even the supporting characters are fuzzy and it's hard to work out who is taking drugs and who isn't. The story makes sense but doesn't necessarily follow a typical linear structure; it's slow but you never feel like there's something that doesn't matter to the overall storyline. It manages to project Cage's character's decline onto every other aspect of the film in such a way that you don't really notice until the very end. It's downright bizarre.It's difficult to put your finger on whether or not this film is enjoyable, and the reasons why. If nothing else, the story is cleverly presented to perfectly depict the decline caused by addiction, and leaves you feeling fuzzy-headed yourself. A strange viewing that very much keeps you thinking once it has finished.