the blog of nathan loding

Bad Lieu­tenant: Port of Call, New Orleans (2009)
Star­ring: Nico­las Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Xzibit
Directed by: Werner Her­zog
Writ­ten by: William M. Fin­klestein
Rated: R
Rat­ing: 4.5 (out of five)

This review con­tains pos­si­ble spoil­ers!  The final para­graphs con­tain what may be con­sid­ered spoil­ers.  While I do not con­sider them spoil­ers, as I don’t think they actu­ally spoil any­thing, some may take offense.  Con­sider this fair warning.

It’s now been over 72 hours since I watched Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieu­tenant: Port of Call, New Orleans.  There’s a rea­son this review is going up sig­nif­i­cantly later than my view­ing.  I didn’t know what to say.  I’ve decided that is actu­ally a good thing.  Maybe even a great thing.

When I first saw the list­ings for a movie called “Bad Lieu­tenant 2” I couldn’t help but laugh.  I’ve not seen the orig­i­nal Bad Lieu­tenant (1992) star­ring Har­vey Kei­tel.  Then I saw Her­zog was direct­ing and I was flab­ber­gasted.  Why would he remake some­thing like that?

Turns out it’s not a remake nor is it a sequel.  Her­zog claims to have never seen the orig­i­nal, and the only rea­son the phrase “Bad Lieu­tenant” is in the title is that the pro­duc­ers felt it would boost the film’s profile.

Herzog’s Bad Lieu­tenant fol­lows Ter­rence McDon­agh (Cage), a vet­eran cop in New Orleans.  The film is set in the after­math of Kat­rina.  In the open­ing scene, Ter­rence takes a leap into a flooded land­ing to save a crim­i­nal.  For his hero­ism, he is pro­moted to Lieu­tenant and left with an irrepara­ble back injury that causes him severe pain.

As Terrence’s pain wors­ens the Vicodin his doc­tor pre­scribed just isn’t enough.  As a cop, he has access to the store rooms where the con­fis­cated drugs are.  Guess what happens?

Ter­rence begins a ter­ri­ble slide into hard­core drug usage.  His girl­friend, Frankie (Mendes), is a pros­ti­tute, and assists Ter­rence get his fix when he needs it.  His father and step-mother are alco­holics, though his father is try­ing to go through AA again.

In one of the more uncom­fort­able scenes I’ve ever watched, Ter­rence fol­lows a young man and his “date” out of a night­club into a vacant park­ing lot.  Flash­ing his red and blue lights, he explains to them that they “match a descrip­tion” and to give him all their drugs.  They do, and as the young man pleads with him to not report any­thing, Ter­rence begins to rape the woman.  And he forces the young man to watch.  And Her­zog forces us to watch.

Then the hal­lu­ci­na­tions begin.  Igua­nas and alli­ga­tors and break­danc­ing souls begin dis­tract­ing Ter­rence as he tries to do his day job.  Although it’s not clear if it’s really a “job” to Ter­rence any longer.

Through­out all this, tying all of it together, is a high pro­file mur­der case, tak­ing Ter­rence deep into the under­ground drug scene in New Orleans.  The mur­der story is a MacGuf­fin, some­thing to keep the viewer inter­ested in some­thing that seems nor­mal.  This is the great irony of Bad Lieu­tenant: a hor­ri­ble mur­der seems accept­able and com­mon­place next to Terrence.

In some ways this film seems almost like a retelling of Shakespeare’s Richard III.  Ter­rence devel­ops a hump and almost limps.  He plows through obsta­cles with ruth­less effi­ciency, set­ting up the pieces well ahead of time.  His insan­ity and insta­bil­ity grows the fur­ther he digs himself.

Cage is absolutely phe­nom­e­nal as the drug addled Ter­rence.  His por­trayal of addic­tion and vio­lence (both against oth­ers and against one’s self) is fright­en­ing.  There is not a sin­gle moment where you look at this sad fig­ure of a cop and think “Hey, that’s Nico­las Cage!”  One of the best per­for­mances of the year with­out a doubt.

This is not an easy movie to watch.  It is hard, in your face, unre­lent­ing, and uncom­pro­mis­ing.  Her­zog has found a great part­ner with Cage.  They have no qualms about get­ting dirty and tak­ing you right down with them.

The first shot is of a water snake swim­ming along and a con­vict near drown­ing.  It ends with Ter­rence slumped in front of a giant glass aquar­ium of swim­ming crea­tures with the con­vict he saved sit­ting beside him, the fish cir­cling end­lessly in their tanks.  Did we just go through two-hours of per­sonal hell only to begin again?  Is this the begin­ning of the end?  The begin­ning of another down­fall after what was almost a suc­cess­ful return to nor­malcy?  At one point Ter­rence asks “Do fish have dreams?”

Her­zog isn’t afraid to leave us won­der­ing.  Are you?

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Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_iPKYe8gHI

Her­zog on Bad Lieu­tenant, Singing Igua­nas, and Prop Cocaine: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/09/director_werner_herzog_on_the.html