The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (2009)

When I reviewed the Abel Ferrara/Harvey Keitel Bad Lieutenant back in August of 2008, this newer Werner Herzog-directed film starring Nicolas Cage was still in development. I ended up missing it when it played at our local indie theater, but luckily Netflix shipped it out to me the day it was released on DVD. Netflix rules! And just in time for our Wild Card post this week.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans isn't quite the movie the other Bad Lieutenant was. Both had drug addicted police lieutenants that get in over their heads with gambling debts and what not, but that's where the similarities end. In this one, Nicloas Cage plays a cop who injures his back saving a criminal from a flooded holding cell during the aftermath of Katrina. He's promoted to lieutenant for his sacrifice, but is also prescribed a cocktail of pain relievers, which leads him down the primrose path to addiction. As his myriad ways of obtaining drugs start to catch up with him and the net is closing in, he finds an unlikely ally in the crime lord he'd been trying to take down for the slaying of a family of five.

I liked this, I don't know if I'd say a lot, but I liked it. There were scenes and images I liked a lot, but the film as a whole had some issues. The end was kind of odd to me, for one thing. Obviously I can't get into that without giving the film away, so maybe someone else who's seen it can either back me up or tell me I'm crazy. Herzog's direction really worked, and he and Cage had a great actor/director chemistry. I'm not sure I can choose between this one or the Ferrara/Keitel one either, because they're so different. While Ferrara's direction made me think of French New Wave, Herzog's made me think of... well... Herzog. A better script would have made it great.

One thing I can say about this, is it's worth ten National Treasures in artistic merit, but it's not worth a hundredth of a National Treasure in terms of earning potential. I think that's why it's so hard to judge Nicolas Cage based on The Weather Man or Knowing, because those sacks of asscrack pay the bills; and if we're realistic, take a lot less work to accomplish as an actor than Bad Lieutenant: PC-NO. A lot of my friends say to me all the time how they can't stand Cage, and I used to agree, until I revisited Leaving Las Vegas last fall, and was reminded of what made Cage great. His role here will remind you again.

Klaus Kinski is a member of our DTVC Hall of Fame, and though we've left him for a bit to look at other actors, it's important to bring him up if we're talking about Werner Herzog. Are they the best actor/director pairing of all time? I think some much better cases could be made for Kurosawa/Mifune or Scorsese/De Niro, so probably no. Are they the most intriguing pair of all time? I think you could look at the five films they've done together and answer yes. But it wasn't really those films I had in my mind as I watched this, it was another of Herzog's: a documentary called Grizzly Man. It was just this window into how Herzog sees the world, and puts a film like Bad Lieutenant: PC-NO into perspective--this idea that the wild is vicious and deadly, and humans that veer too far in that direction face dire consequences. I was kind of upset, because there are some scenes in the film (again, I won't give them away) that I would've liked to known Herzog's thought process on, but this DVD didn't have any director's commentary--it didn't have any commentary for that matter.

One thing evident in the Kinski/Herzog films though, is that it's Herzog who gets Kinski, not the other way around--I can't imagine Kinski would've cared to get Herzog, or anyone else for that matter. In Bad Lieutenant: PC-NO, something different happens: Cage seems to get what Herzog is about, and he works in that realm. It makes this a very different film from those other five. There wasn't that sense of struggle, and I think Herzog needs that when he works. Again, there was no commentary, but I can't imagine Cage was giving him anywhere near the hard time Kinski always did; and oddly enough, I think that harmony affected the film. Herzog tried to convey conflict on the screen in a variety of ways, but I'm not so sure it's something that can always be manufactured if the feeling off set is too harmonious.

Finally, you'd think with Eva Mendes in the film, it would be her that I'm talking about as the hottest woman in the film, and though she was hot, it was Fairuza Balk in only one scene who stood out. This is one area where a foreign director who lives by his own rules like Herzog can really turn some of our preconceived notions upside-down. The average American director looks to Balk for their goth chick or scary chick. Herzog saw something else, and he went with it, resulting in this scene where Balk's character thinks she's going to have sex with Cage, is seductively crawling over him in bed in her underwear and police boots, only to find out he's too wasted and is only there with her to find out how she can get him drugs from the Louisiana Highway Patrol evidence locker. Without her being as hot as she is in that scene, we have no idea how far gone Cage is, and it all works perfectly.

I think most of my readers would enjoy this. Best way to know: if you hated National Treasure, you'll like Bad Lieutenant: PC-NO. I also think, if you're a big fan of the Ferrara/Keitel version, you should watch this. It's no cheap knock off, this is it's own movie, and it's interesting to compare the two. If I was going to pick, I'd say the earlier one is the more complete film, making it better in my eyes.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1095217/

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