Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans

**

Bad Movie: Port of Call, Over-The-Top Filmmaking


          “Watch me fuck your girlfriend!”  I would elaborate on the scene that housed these words from Werner Herzog’s latest movie The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call, New Orleans, but like the movie itself, why bother?  Oh, Nicolas Cage.  Wherefore art thou Leaving Las Vegas?  Let’s face it: Nicolas Cage has delivered one remarkable performance throughout his god-awful career, while lampooning the rest of the way with performances of quote unquote acting.  Whether or not he has parodied himself throughout his career is a topic for another time.  Simply put, the man is a bad actor.   The biggest travesty of Nicolas Cage’s latest role is the fact that its caricaturization was performed through the lens of director Werner Herzog’s camera.

          Werner Herzog has made a career out of creating larger-than-life characters caught within the boundaries of frantic scenarios.  With such classics as Aguirre: The Wrath of God, The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, and Nosferatu the Vampire, Herzog has created a cinematic world full of eccentricities, agitation, and madness.  More times than not, his philosophy on the true nature of cinematic storytelling has worked to his credit.  In the case of Bad Lieutenant, however, his vision has fallen flat.  Herzog muscles his way through Bad Lieutenant with some striking visuals and assured direction, but there is only so much a camera can do with an awful script and Nicolas Cage.

          For some bizarre reason, Bad Lieutenant has received many glowing reviews.  Some critics have even suggested that there’s an outside chance of Cage receiving his third Oscar nomination for this role.  If this should happen, Cage will join the illustrious company of James Coco and Amy Irving as the only three actors to be nominated for both an Oscar and a Razzie (an annual awards show given out for the worst achievements in the movie year) for the same performance.  Cage’s work here in Bad Lieutenant is nothing short of embarrassing.

          There is a scene late in the movie in which Cage - playing the role of a cocaine addicted narcotics detective named Terence McDonagh - is fired for malpractice and consequentially stripped of his badge and gun.  Being the lawless lawman that he is, Terence decides to continue his ‘detective work’, despite the loss of all of his credentials.  In the hopes of paying off a mounting gambling debt, Terence continues his pretension of being a legitimate detective, by cutting a deal with a notorious drug lord.  The payoff scene through which Terence (all doped up on cocaine and God knows what else) receives his cut of the drug money, is perhaps the worst display of ‘acting high’ that I have ever seen.  Whether it is through his shakes, his agitation, or outbursts of laughter, Cage turns his character into a complete joke.  His work in this scene is so over-the-top that one almost wonders if Cage was performing that way on purpose.  If such is the case, then Cage has not only given one of the worst performances of the year, but in the process has also made a mockery of acting as a credible art form.  I can hear the call of the Razzies now.

          Despite boasting the unfortunate combination of an awful script and dismal ensemble cast, Bad Lieutenant does have some intriguing moments.  For instance, there is a scene early on in the film where Lieutenant McDonagh is staking out a murder scene.  As McDonagh sifts around the scene of the crime, he comes across a murdered child and finds a note sitting on the desk next to him.  It reads as follows: “My friend is a fish.  He live in my room.  His fin is a cloud.  He see me when I sleep.”  Upon reading this note, McDonagh finds a glass of water containing this goldfish.  He picks it up and holds it to the light, with his eyes glazing through the glass like a drugged-up teenager.  It is a subtle moment of symbolism, as it foreshadows the enigma of Terence McDonagh and all of his eccentric and peculiar mannerisms.

          It is a shame that both Cage and Herzog could not continue this line of subtlety.  Instead, they created a cartoonish environment which ruptured out of control, and simultaneously taught us one valuable lesson: A movie’s friend is a good script.  He lives in its actors.  His fin is the actors’ performances.  He sees us when we sleep...right through a bad, overdone movie.