This blog is awash with opinions on Nicholas Cage. Love him or hate him, at least the man usually puts some effort in, even if the film's not up to much. Perhaps he was trying to make amends for Bangkok Dangerous, where Cage made no effort at all, but his performance in Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans is one of the most extreme he's ever delivered. If you are of a nervous disposition, have a weak heart, or simply hate it when Nicholas Cage overacts (Face/Off, Ghostrider, Snake Eyes)then avoid this at all costs.
For the rest of you, this Bad Lieutenant movie (not related at all to Abel Ferrera's original) is a slimy plotted police procedural about an investigation into a multiple murder. However, nuts director Werner Herzog, is more interested in the ups and downs of Cage's Terry McDonough. He gambles, he gets free drugs wherever he can get it...either by smuggling cocaine out of the precinct's evidence room, shaking down dealers on the street and taking their stash or arranging profitable protection deals with the local drug lord, Xzibit. He delights in breaking rules, letting blackmailing sluts shag him in the street, if it'll prevent their own arrest, and roughing up little old ladies for information. His dads in rehab, his step mother's an alcoholic and his girlfriend's a high class hooker (the sexy Eva Mendes).
It's a good cast with Mendes and Xzibit joined by Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Brad Dourif and Jennifer Coolidge all peeping out from behind Cage's shadow. Director Herzog throws in some surreal, trippy sequences of Alligators and Iguana's that McDonough is drawn to...just to stop things getting to conventional.
Things eventually come crashing down for Terry...how could they not, but he also miraculously navigates to good times too. Well nearly. Depending on you point of view, someone needs to give Cage a lifetime achievement award...either at the Oscars or at the Razzies. Because, God knows, the man deserves one of them.
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