Product: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans [Blu-ray] (2009)
Rating: 4.0
a return to form for Nick Cage
After what seems like decades of poor career choices, Nicholas Cage isfinally back at the top of his game in "Bad Lieutenant: Port of CallNew Orleans," a film that reminds us of just how fine an actor the man can be when hehas material worthy of his talents.In this "loose" follow-up to the 1992 film "Bad Lieutenant," Cage playsTerence McDonaugh, a homicide detective whose chronic back pain hasturned him into a veritable coke fiend, and whose penchant for gamblingand consorting with prostitutes makes him less than ideal law enforcermaterial. Yet, despite his moral shortcomings, McDonaugh is a crackinvestigator who's currently working on a case involving the brutalslaying of a heroin dealer and his family of Senegalese immigrants.In its willingness to take its time laying out its storyline andsoaking in the rich details of its social milieu and physical setting,"Bad Lieutenant" has more in common with dense TV dramas like "TheShield" and "The Wire" than it does with slicker police proceduralsaimed at a mainstream movie audience. Beyond Cage, who makes us feelevery twinge - physical or otherwise - that the character is goingthrough, there is excellent supporting work from Eva Mendes, Tom Bowerand Jennifer Coolidge, among others, though Val Kilmer isunder-utilized as his crime-fighting partner.Director Werner Herzog adds a number of offbeat "artistic" touches -some involving indigenous fauna like alligators and iguanas - toheighten the somewhat surrealistic nature of the piece, whichaccurately reflects McDonaugh's increasingly altered state ofconsciousness. Despite the murder mystery scenario that serves as itsengine, the screenplay by William Finkelstein frequently takes detoursaround the main story, more concerned with exploring character andsetting than with providing a linear, action-packed narrative. And it's also wickedly funny. In fact, the more emotionally and psychologically unhinged McDonaugh becomesthroughout the course of the story, the more the black humor quotientrises up to meet him.Cage, showing his confidence as an actor, is not afraid to push theenvelope in his performance, often ratcheting it up a notch or two toconvey McDonaugh's disordered state. The movie also hints at how rifewith corruption much of the reconstruction effort in the wake ofHurricane Katrina has become, with unscrupulous types looking to make aquick buck off the vulnerable and desperate citizens who still livethere.