Product: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans [Blu-ray] (2009)
Rating: 4.0
Herzog meets Hammett: baffling at first, but give it a chance.
At first, Herzog's latest was just plain exhausting. The picture-perfect ending initially came across as a sneering, nihilistic slap in the face after all the misdeeds accumulated in the movie. But then I got to thinking. In the scenes between Nicolas Cage and Xzibit, Cage's character adopts precisely the one attitude that has any chance of success. Not that he'd consciously planned it, but he couldn't have done a better job if he had. A character like Big Fate understands extravagantly sleazy and reckless behaviour, it fits into his worldview. If one demonstrates sufficient extremes of recklessness (like pulling a gun on him while driving), that just might sort of begin to elicit respect, assuming one didn't instantly get killed. In that situation, acting crazy is the only way to stay alive.Despite being high all the time, the lieutenant pulls off a very delicate balancing act. Thugs come to extort money from him, threaten to disfigure his girlfriend and shoot his dog. He can't fight them, but showing any sign of weakness will just goad them into carrying out their threats. So, he agrees to their demands for money, but acts in a businesslike, sleazy manner. He won't hand the girl over to the thugs, but only because (he says) she hasn't had time to make herself look attractive. Miraculously, they don't press the point. He's speaking exactly their language.So, in the end, the lieutenant does a neat job of work, in a sense. He solves the murder of the drug-dealing immigrants, and the culprit is punished, though not for that particular crime, and not in a particularly orderly fashion. It's important to note that the lieutenant insists on the mobster's arrest; Val Kilmer's character wants to play the corrupt cop and steal the mobster's drugs, but the lieutenant forces him to make the arrest. He does jeopardize a bunch of innocent people's lives, but happily they suffer no permanent damage. A few thugs died, but they were obviously pretty low types, so the film's audience doesn't have to feel bad.If you've ever read the classic crime novels ofDashiell Hammett, you'll recognize this setup. Hammett's novelRed Harvestexplores this idea of the morally ambiguous crime-fighter, who descends into the underworld, engages in questionable acts, makes all kinds of bargains and alliances with criminals, pretends to be after money or women, while all this time, deep down, none of this really affects him, and he is truly motivated only by his distaste for the criminals. There is not much inner monologue; you see what the detective does, but you're often left guessing as to why. As a result, bodies pile up and many thugs die gruesome deaths, but the idea is that they all had it coming anyway, so the reader is supposed to ignore the lack of due process.Hammett's concept was, "Plans are all right sometimes. And sometimes just stirring things up is all right." The detective doesn't really have a master plan, he just acts on instinct and eventually things work out. That idea seems to be present in Herzog's film, and also in his previous filmRescue Dawn, where Christian Bale's character also had a sort of vague general moral code, but then just did whatever came into his head, and counted on his instinct and willpower to get him through. Cage's character here just throws himself headfirst into the chaos, always going all the way and living on the edge, but carefully modulating his reactions to suit the situation at hand.Fortunately, Herzog tempers his paean to impulsiveness with sympathetic details. At one point, the lieutenant starts to look, hilariously, like a harried family man, trying to simultaneously handle witness protection for the murder case, ferry his girlfriend to safety, and even take care of his parents' dog. This is completely goofy, but it shows you that he does have a bizarre sense of responsibility. This makes it easier to accept him than it is to like the detective in Red Harvest, who has no human connections of any kind. It also makes the film more suspenseful, as he means well, but seems to be spiraling out of control.So, the message (if there is one) is mostly about the joys of winging it and throwing caution to the winds. Which fits into Herzog's worldview well enough. And just in case you forget who's behind the camera, he recycles the music from the end ofStroszekduring a hysterical hallucination scene. There are many other odd images in the film, mostly involving iguanas, as well as occasional philosophical lines in the dialogue that would never be spoken by real-life thugs (although they do greatly resemble Herzog's narration inGrizzly Man), but are convincing enough in the film. Many of the generic supporting characters are given just enough quirks to be interesting, like the awesome dude with a mullet who says "whoa" and "oh yeah."Herzog's reinvention of himself as a Hollywood director in the 2000s, starting withInvincible, is an odd development. Maybe it's because, these days, no one is willing to fund the kinds of films he used to make, and even a more mainstream film like this can't get released unless it's billed as a remake (Herzog's film has nothing in common with Abel Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant," the title was forced on him by the producers). "Port Of Call New Orleans" won't supercedeclassicHerzog (though I'd love to hear him try to explain where the "poetic truth" is here), but it is suspenseful and memorable. After one thinks a bit about the details that stayed in one's mind, it becomes clear that the film is very entertaining and delivers a great time.