Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

Nicolas Cage. There, I said it. Nicolas Cage is in this film. The man who has
not starred in a good film since the year started with a 2. This film has a lot to
prove.

Also, it's "based on" the '92 Abel Ferrera film, Bad Lieutenant, a fact which
apparently Ferrera isn't too pleased about, and which Werner Herzog, the
director of this film, claims is neither here nor there, since he never saw the
original film. I can kind of believe that. Because beyond the fact that both
films feature as the main character a cop, who is a lieutenant, and who has a
problem with drugs and gambling, there's very little to connect the two.

In this film, Cage plays a cop who's injured saving a criminal from drowning
during the New Orleans flood, ends up on painkillers, and moves on to more
harder stuff. As he makes progressively worse decisions, and loses control due
to the effects of drugs, his life spirals out of control as he pisses off a
series of people it would be best not to piss off. He then makes some even
worse decisions attempting to wriggle out of the shit he's got himself in.

The film's directed, as I mentioned, by Werner Herzog, a man with such serious
arthouse credentials that he once directed a film called "Werner Herzog Eats
His Shoe." In which he eats one of his shoes. Apparently he lost a bet meaning
he had to do so, but the fact that he decided to make a 20 minute film about
the experience tells you what kind of man we are dealing with here. It's an odd
film, oddly shot. Hard to say in what way, but this in no way feels like a cop
movie. There's a bit where some cops are on a stakeout, and while we're waiting
for something to happen, the camera decides to take an interest in a couple of
iguanas that are (for some reason) in the scene. Then, we snap back into the
action, no explanation. It's full of these odd little moments, which I suppose
are indicative of Cage's deteriorating mental state. Or maybe they're just
peculiar diversions.

Cage is actually really good, portraying the general mental breakdown of a man
fucked up on painkillers, heroin, cocaine and crack. By the end he's really
lost it, to great effect, in my view.

What I like about this film, and why I prefer it to Ferrera's Bad Lieutenant is
that it doesn't moralise. We're not here to see this man redeemed or punished
for his actions, we're just witnessing the events, and seeing whether or not he
will get through it all. You're not told what to think, so you get to walk out
of the cinema and ponder it for yourself. Having been greatly entertained in
the process.