Review #13

Bad Lieutenant: Port of New Orleans. Written by William M. Finkelstein; Directed by Werner Herzog

This is easily Herzog's higest-profile film ever. Its failure at the American box-office may discourage big Hollywood producers from hiring a loony Arthouse director for a big-budget crime drama, but thank God they did just that or otherwise we wouldn't have this film! The script is far from original, but Herzog has injected enough of his signature into it to make it riveting and compelling.

Nicholas Cage's performance is very intense, and when one watches this film you get the impression that him and Herzog were made for each other. He gets into the character of this crack-addled cop so well that he will go hell-for-leather to accomplish his performance. This would inevitably - and justifiably - draw comparisons to Klaus Kinsky. No matter how accomplished Herzog's recent documentaries have been, he hasn't found an obsessive character who has this intensity. He briefly found it in Timothy Treadwell, but after him becoming deceased his Herzog partnership was over.

Nicholas Cage plays a cop who has been recently promoted to lieutenant. He is far from heroic as he staggers across the backstreets of post-hurricane New Orleans. He steals cocaine from pedestrians and gives a large amount of it to is prostitute girlfriend. Cage investigates a murder that leads to... frankly, I can't remember. The plot is largely forgettable, and I don't think Herzog cares much for it himself. Not many directors would interrupt key plot points with extensive shots of iguanas (are they meant to symbolise the character's drug addiction? Who knows?) If this is meant to be a crime drama, it fails completely; Herzog takes it onto a new level.

The film is named after a 1992 Abel Ferrara film, Bad Lieutenant. Already drawing an enraged reaction from this director, Herzog insists this isn't a remake (he claims he hasn't seen the film nor even heard of Ferrara, which can't be too credible). I haven't seen this film either, though I'm sure this newer version must bear similarities no matter how superficial they may be.

I was watching Mark Kermode reviewing the film, and he believes that this is an 'incidental' Herzog film. I think there are certainly a lot of Herzog features in it, especially the shots of iguanas, but perhaps this is true. This picture does have elements of a b-movie, and it isn't a giant aesthetic leap in Herzog's career, but how often will he have a chance to direct a film like this?