Lucky Crack Pipes n' Dancin' Souls

I don't know if there are any other movies out this year where an A-list actor such as Nicholas Cage can be found stopping the air supply to a senior citizen whilst pointing a gun at another senior citizen with the bug-shot eyes of a crack head as pictured above but you'll find it all in 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans'.

I remember when I first heard about this a year ago, though I can't remember who I had the conversation with:-

"Hey, you remember that movie by Abel Ferarra called 'Bad Lieutenant' with Harvey Keitel?"

"Yeah?"

"They're gonna remake it."

"Fuck off. Who's remaking it?"

"Werner Herzog."

"What?! Fuck off! Who's acting in it?"

"Nicholas Cage."

"Fuck. Off."

It all sounded like a bad joke till I saw the teaser poster whilst they were in the midst of production and sure enough, there it was - Nicholas Cage, in a film by Werner Herzog.

Then I heard that it wasn't a remake, or a re-imagining, or whatever. It was a completely different story. Sure, it was about a lieutenant who was bad but that was the only similarity. I was still unsure what to make of it until Ain't It Cool News posted a sneak preview trailer.

(The above isn't exactly like the one that I saw, but pretty close. You can watch the official trailer by clicking here.)

Now I was curious. Though some may hate his acting style, I do enjoy my dose of the Cage, depending of course on what he's in, and he's been in some major turkeys recently. This, however, got my hopes up a bit. The thought of Nicholas Cage going crazy after tokes from his lucky crack pipe and seeing iguanas whilst humping hookers was intriguing, so when I finally got a chance to check it out I watched with a certain level of expectations.

And the verdict? Mmm... so-so.

There are some insane moments in the movie indeed, most of them glimpsed in the trailer above, but the trailer also gives the impression that the Cage would be this insane throughout the movie, which he isn't. In actuality, it's a build up in nuttiness that all starts when the Cage rescues a prisoner in a cell flooding with water during hurricane Katrina and ends up with a severe back injury which requires him to take a lot of painkillers.  From painkillers he moves to cocaine, swiped from the evidence storage room. From there, he starts stealing drugs from the people he busts. Then he goes on to crack and does even more bad things, culminating in him rolling with the drug dealer (played by Xzibit) that he was trying to lock up at the beginning of the movie.

And as the movie progresses, we are treated with random iguana and lizard cams, Cage doing drugs and assaulting a senior citizen. Not continuously but evenly peppered throughout the movie. And though the sight of Cage in those moments when he goes nuts is fun, the question remains -

What is the point of the movie?

In the original 'Bad Lieutenant' directed by Abel Fererra, the entire film was unrepentant and unflinching. From the start, Harvey Keitel is a Bad Cop.

The type of Bad Cop that would take away the money that two thieves steal from a convenience store then steal from the convenience store himself whilst the owner's making a statement at the station. The type of Bad Cop that would let two under-aged girls who are sneaking out to go clubbing get away with it as long as one of them shows him her ass and the other pretends to suck a cock whilst he masturbates to the sight of them doing so in the middle of a street. The type of Bad Cop that would make bets he can't pay for and shoots his own car radio when the bets don't work out.

And, more importantly, there's a point to the movie. As Harvey Keitel goes along with all his Bad Things, a nun is raped by two young punks and though he thinks he'll find retribution for all these Bad Things by finding and punishing those responsible he discovers that the nun is so devout that she forgives her rapists, leading to Keitel trying to figure out how he can truly find some form of retribution leading to a powerful and incredibly downbeat ending. There's a strong story amidst the Badness (along with Keitel giving a one man show tour-de-force throughout the entire movie... including getting his schlong out).

'Port of Call New Orleans' does feature Cage doing a one man show too, but I can't see the point to the movie. The underlying plot of it all. The reason for the movie's existence. The only point that I can see is that it shows how a cop can go from bad to worse but then again, not really. And the fact that we get to see this transition and the point where it all started kinda takes the power away from the badness. We sympathize with Cage's character not because of his performance making us feel for a flawed character, but because we know that he's suffering severe pain from a back injury sustained whilst saving a criminal's life. It gives the chronic drug abuse a reason, albeit a bad one.

I know that since the only relation the two movies have is the name, but I can't help but compare the two. Keitel was bad from the get go. We never know why he did so many Bad Things. He has a wife, he's got kids, yet he sleeps with whores, snorts coke, gambles and steals. We never know why. In 'Port of Call...' Cage has his back issue. His girlfriend is a prostitute but not a street walker, more an escort - and by the end of the movie she turns away from her wicked ways. Then there's his parents - mom's an alcoholic and dad's a recovering alcohol. There are so many reasons as to why he'd be taking drugs and turning to the 'dark side' and by the end of the movie he learns nothing and gains nothing and neither do we.

However, like I said, it's not entirely fair to compare the two as their both completely different movies. And, to be honest, we could do with more movies like 'Port of Call...' Last year Millennium Films released 'Rambo IV' which wasn't a great movie by any means and also didn't really have a point to it all but it was bug-nuts crazy and fun. In fact, I can't see any point at all to the movie besides watching Stallone kill a lot of people in the most gruesome, insane and illogical manner possible.

The only point in watching 'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans' is to watch Nicolas Cage go cookoo on crack. And there's nothing wrong with that. Especially in this day and age where movies are getting progressively sanitized and pre-packaged for megabuck opening weekends it's good to know that there are still some films out there that don't cater to the entire mass public yet featuring enough known actors that it can safely find distribution and an audience.

To quote Massawyrm from Ain't It Cool News,

The first thing you need to know about BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS is that it is NOT a good movie. It’s not meant to be. It’s a bad movie, a movie so WTF awful at times that you can only cock your head and shake it baffled at what you are seeing. So why are people going gaga for it? Because it is an AWESOME movie; a funny as fuck and meant to be bad every step of the way.

'Nuff said.