Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Stands On It's Own As A GREAT Film Despite Title
I have to say I was somewhat horrified when I saw the trailer for this; it looked very generic and unintersting. The first thought in my head after hearing about this collaboration of Herzog and Cage was 'trainwreck'. I mean, I knew it would be at least an interesting wreck, but I was not expecting much. I was dead wrong.

Also, let me say that the original film by Abel Ferrara is one of my all time faves, and Harvey Keitel's performance is the answer I automatically give to anyone who asks what my all time favorite film performance is.

That being said.....

While the first film is dark and just brutal, this film is actually quite funny. With the exception of drug addict cops and gambling debts, the films are quite different. The first was def more in your face w/both it's graphic portrayal of gutter life and the ever-present religious overtones. This film is far more subtle, both in it's scenery and supporting cast, all across the board I might add;...

Fear and loathing in New Orleans
Who could have guessed that the man who helmed art house classics like "Fitzcarraldo", "Woyzeck" and "Aguirre the Wrath of God" would one day make a film entitled "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call-New Orleans"? Then again, one might argue that the iconoclastic Werner Herzog's career would be nothing, if not perennially unpredictable.

Herzog's latest film, arguably adorned with the year's most unwieldy title for squeezing onto a marquee, is a (sort of) sequel to Abel Ferrara's controversial 1992 neo-noir, "Bad Lieutenant" which was about a drug and gambling-addicted NYC homicide investigator. In that film, Harvey Keitel gave a fearless and maniacal performance as a "cop on the edge" who made most of the criminals he was paid to apprehend look like choir boys. Not an easy act to follow-but Nicholas Cage proves to be more than up to the task here.

To my observation, Cage has demonstrated two basic personas in his repertoire over the years. First, there is the...

Nicholas Cage At Long Last Returns To His Roots--with Werner Herzog
We all know the Nicholas Cage of recent years who seemingly has made one hackneyed movie after another just to indulge yet another big pay check and spending spree. Those of us who had been following him from the beginning, who loved his quirky indie films with offbeat directors, were horrified at what he'd become. Now he has teamed with the ultimate indie, offbeat director, Werner Herzog, to reclaim his roots. I believe that both Herzog and Cage have made a movie that is an extended metaphor about post Katrina New Orleans. Cage IS that post Katrina beleaguered city. He starts out the film injured and heroic and then zig zags through the rest of the film exhibiting the behavior of a post traumatic stress disorder patient who is untreated, like such a soldier from Vietnam or Iraq. For Herzog's part, he's always been about imagery and metaphors and he doesn't disappoint here in rendering the ultimate imagery and metaphor for post Katrina New Orleans. This is a very different movie...

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