BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS

US, 2009, 120 minutes, Colour.
Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Vondie Curtis- Hall, Shawn Hatosey, Irma P. Hall, Fairusa Balk, Tom Bower, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael Shannon.
Directed by Werner Herzog.

Put it this way: Werner Herzog directing a slick US Police thriller?  After so many decades of inventively idiosyncratic film-making, a story of a corrupt New Orleans detective?  Anyway, he has done it.   this time his movie will be found in multiplexes.
 
The setting is New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, though locations and aftermath are not notably used, more in passing.
 
The plot is more or less the usual - a family, illegal and from Senegal, is massacred, drug dealings, underlings and kingpins; arrests, interrogations; a set-up and a successful outcome for the police.  The difference is the bad lieutenant of the title - though we have seen corrupt officers before.  This time it is Nicolas Cage who seems to be more mannered and ticish as he grows older.  His character does have severe back pain, is on medication, becomes hooked on drugs.  He is also an inveterate and unwise gambler.  His girlfriend is a call girl (Eva Mendes).  So, there is ample reason for the tics but it looks like he is acting rather than creating a character.
 
What if Herzog had been able to make it with his late Aguirre, Fitzcarraldo actor, Klaus Kinski?  That would have been intense.  Actually, had Val Kilmer (who plays Cage's assistant as a nasty) been cast, it might have been better, let alone Michael Shannon (who has a brief role).  Shannon can do evil and mad (Bug, World Trade Center, Revolutionary Road).
 
Note:  we interrupt this review with a confession.
 
(I had been writing this so far in a cinema at the Venice Film Festival where we had seen Bad Lieutenant in the morning.  It is evening and a 'surprise film' is about to be shown.  It is, and this is a shock, directed by Werner Herzog, My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done.  And, it starts as a US police thriller!  However, it is a relief when, after introducing Willem Dafoe and Michael Pena going to a siege situation, it goes back to Herzog idiosyncracies, produced by David Lynch).)
 
Back to Bad Lieutenant.
 
Fans of Abel Ferrara's 1992 Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel will be wondering how the (loose) remake compares.  Simply, this version omits all the Catholic images and themes, the nun, the crucifix, the lieutenant's hallucination of Jesus in the Church and his Munchian scream of despair.  So, Ferrara's film still stands, with its 'out of the depths' desperation, as does Harvey Keitel's powerful performance.
 
This new version is a cry out of the depths and there seems to be some redemption (at the opening the lieutenant is not entirely irredeemable).  Other characters rather cosily find some redemption but is that just a cynical giggle from Cage at the end?

1.Satisfying police thriller? Slick style? The character of the lieutenant?

2.Werner Herzog and his interests, style, making an American police film? His perspective? The mad and obsessive lead?

3.New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina, the city, the mood, locations, neighbourhoods, the precinct, the streets? Musical score?

4.The title and expectations? The link with Abel Ferrara’s original film – different?

5.Katrina, the flood, Steve and Terry, watching Chavez, taunting, the bet, reactions? Terry, his expensive underwear, going in, saving Chavez? His being promoted to lieutenant?

6.Terry in himself, the bets, his life, redeemable? His back, the doctor, the pills, the growing need, the pain, the drugs? Snorting cocaine? His relationship with Frankie, her lifestyle? Mundt and his refusal to supply the drugs? Terry’s anger at the pharmacist’s assistant on the phone and not giving him the drugs?

7.The massacre of the Senegalese family? The boss, the precinct, the men, the staff? Steve and his personality, demanding, working with Terry? Armand as young, dutiful? The bodies, the motivation for the murder? The motive for solving the murder? The illegal family, the sister and her plea? Terry accepting the job, going into the house, getting the junkie out? The interrogations, Steve and his harshness? Terry and his method, getting information, names? Raiding the house of the henchman, the threat to the mother of the baby, his hiding in the cupboard? Terry street-smart? Tracking down Fate? With the old woman, doing the hair of the patient? Her grandson as witness? The information about his delivery? The confrontation with Frankie’s client and his threats? The official complaints, the police reaction?

8.Terry and his relationship with Frankie, to her clients? Loving her, getting the drugs, his treatment? Going home, his father, AA? Genevieve and drinking the beer? Their squalid life? Taking Frankie there, Frankie and Genevieve and their clash, later, Frankie going to the AA meetings?

9.Terry and the drugs, taking every opportunity, from the property office in the precinct? His betting, his contact, the debts, the speeding ticket for the daughter, going to the good cop and his refusal? Sonia and her relationship, the sex, fixing up the difficulty?

10.The interlude with the crocodiles and the road crash? The iguanas – Terry’s visions and hallucinations? His need for the drugs? The boy and girl coming from the club, taking their drugs, assaulting the girl? Repeating this at the end? Taking drugs during his interrogations, his lies? Barefaced lies to his superior?

11.The set-up for Fate, the site, the aftermath of the hurricane, building condominiums? The money, for his bets, setting up the footballer and threatening him – and the irony of the footballer staying out of the match yet the match being won and his getting the money? The drugs, Fate, testing the drugs? Terry and the debt collectors and their pressure? Their coming into the house, Fate shooting them? Smoking the crack pipe, planting it as evidence, the DNA, suggesting Armand find it? The arrest of Fate, Steve wanting to shoot him? Terry and his wanting control?

12.The boy, the old ladies in the institution, Terry and the interrogation, taking out the oxygen, terrorising the women? The boy going to the UK?

13.Word getting around about the deaths, the wealthy boy dropping the charges? Terry in the store, weighing the drugs, deceiving the police? But being reinstated?

14.The boss, his running of the precinct, happy that the criminals were caught, charged? Terry and his promotion to captain?

15.The final meal, Frankie going to AA, with Genevieve and his father? The toast? Yet his assaulting the couple from the club? The encounter with Chavez, sitting with him, the cynical laugh at the end – or not?

16.A film of police, their work, types, pressures, corruption? Ends justifying means?