Rating: 8.5/10

Writers: William Finkelstein (screenplay), Victor Argo, Paul Calderon, Abel Ferrara, and Zoe Lund (earlier film)
Director: Werner Herzog
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit
Studio: First Look Pictures

We’re going to kick off with a disclaimer. Werner Herzog’s BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS is not a remake of Abel Ferrara’s BAD LIEUTENANT. I mean, obviously, as the film takes place in, you know, New Orleans. Of course, Herzog’s titular Lieutenant (as played by Nicolas Cage) has some things in common with Ferrara’s Lieutenant, Harvey Keitel – they’re both “bad” in the sense that they are drug addicts and gamblers who misuse their position. Being familiar with the original LIEUTENANT is not necessary to view PORT OF CALL, and the combination of seeing both within a short period of time would probably just make you supremely unlikely to pull over for the police ever again.

Herzog’s film starts during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Cage’s Terence McDonagh unexpectedly saves a prisoner from certain death, injuring himself in the process. His inability to “manage” his pain with prescription drugs turns him on to cocaine. It’s all sort of downhill from there.

Like any good cop film, BAD LIEUTENANT is loosely centered on the solving of a big-time case. In Herzog’s film, an illegal immigrant Senegalese family has been murdered execution style. One of New Orleans’ biggest drug kingpins (Big Fate, as played by Xzibit) is suspected of the murder, as the family’s patriarch had been running his own smalltime drug biz in his territory. Along the way of solving the crime, all manner of things happen at all points in time, and I would not even attempt to detail some of the best of them (but do keep an eye out for parking lots and nursing homes). McDonagh mingles with creeps, lowlifes, and prostitutes. He’s dedicated to his work, but is also dedicated to betting big money on football games, getting his next fix, and viciously abusing his badge.

It’s hard to say that things go off the rails in BL. Things never even start on the rails. It’s like Herzog has built a freight train so powerful it doesn’t need tracks, and he doesn’t care what it destroys in its path. And, beyond that, it’s bizarre. It’s utterly, totally, gloriously bizarre. It’s spectacle. I alternately laughed and gawped more at this film than I have for any other this year (at the very least).

For all the touting of this film as a Nicolas Cage / Eva Mendes affair, Mendes (like nearly everyone else in a pretty glitzy cast – including the exceptional Michael Shannon as a mere grunt cop, Jennifer Coolidge as a drunk, and Brad Dourif as Cage’s bookie) is unessential to the overall film. Mendes and second-billers Val Kilmer and Xzibit are not just second fiddle to Cage, they’re practically cleaning the floor of the honky-tonk where the fiddles are playing. Everyone in the film is gloriously expendable, except Cage. The man doesn’t just chew the scenery, the actors around him, the entire plot, and any dialogue put into his slack-jawed maw, he devours it.

At some point, Cage abandons all pretense of even attempting a Southern accent (he often slips out of it in the middle of sentence), and spends the last forty or so minutes talking and jawing as if he has repeatedly been punched in the face and injected with Novocain. Of course, this could also be a well-acted nod to how many narcotics McDonagh has consumed in the last week or so.

Technically, Herzog makes some serious missteps at the conclusion of BAD LIEUTENANT. The last ten to fifteen minutes are positively crammed with scenes that each could have been the last scene. As Herzog drags things out, ultimately giving us an ending that is overwhelmingly tidy in its circular mess, possible final scenes flicker by. Each possible final scene gets progressively weaker, until it finally ends.

There are enough scenes, lines, and mannerisms in BAD LIEUTENANT to keep film buffs exceedingly happy. You will never look at iguanas or breakdancers the same way again. You will most likely never be able to wait in line for a prescription again. You’ll snicker at anyone who says, “oh, yeah.” And you’ll never be able to look at Nicolas Cage the same way.

Walking out of BAD LIEUTENANT, I could only think of a formula to explain it – it’s 50% awful, 50% magnificent, 100% hilarious. And while I was continuing to ponder my theorems and algorithms, another critic behind me declared it a masterpiece. And that’s when the strangest thing happened. I turned to him and nodded.