No. 58 Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) 33 of 100

 

This Werner Herzog film is unrelated to the Harvey Keitel offering, apart from the same title, sans the New Orleans suffix. I don’t know if there was a plan to do films about various bad lieutenants in different jurisdictions but it was a strange title choice if not – I’m guessing they were hoping for some brand recognition. 

Nicholas Cage stars as the titular flatfoot who, when the film opens, is a sergeant in the New Orleans police department. It’s 2005 and Hurricane Katrina has just hit. Cage rifles through a colleague’s locker with his partner Val Kilmer and, after pocketing some saucy Polaroids, finds some arrest papers that suggest someone may still be in the flooded cells. They go to check, and find the prisoner struggling with rising water in his cell. After debating whether to save the soon to be drowning perp and ruining his good pants, Cage jumps in to save him.

This good deed does indeed ruin his fancy underwear and hurts his back, but at least he gets promoted to Lieutenant. Six months pass and our man is addicted to prescription meds and basically anything he can get his hands on. He has a shapely girlfriend in the shape of hooker Eva Mendes and a big case that involves five murders to solve.

The film follows a few days in Cage's life as he chases down some leads and behaves badly. He has a helper in the evidence locker, our Mr Shannon, who is passing him pills from various busts. This helpful source will dry up soon though as Shannon is getting cold feet and cameras have been installed.

The murder investigation leads Cage to some drug dealers and rather than run them in he joins forces to supply them with intel on busts in exchange for drugs. Elsewhere Cage is also being pursued for $50k in punishment for shaking $10k out of Shea Whigham as well as an ever expanding debt to his bookie.

As the sharks starts to move in Cage catches a few lucky breaks in his case and in his relationships. Can he move to a life of sobriety or is the ‘bad’ just too deeply ingrained.

I quite liked this drama, come dark comedy. Cage was good in the lead and his mania was believable. There were a couple of strange scenes where we share his hallucinations including a bizarre one when a dead mobster’s spirit is breakdancing about until more bullets are pumped into his dead body.

The cast were generally good with Kilmer and Whigham not getting much to do. Mendes was better as the hooker with a heart, although I don’t know what she saw in Cage – apart from the drugs obviously.

Shannon only gets two scenes, but a few lines in each and he’s decent as the reluctant storage locker helper.

The end of the film was a bit strange and I was waiting for all of the good luck that fell into Cage’s hands to be revealed as a drug fuelled fantasy. Maybe it was, but it wasn’t overt in its execution. I think for a film like this to succeed you have to invest in the anti-hero and Cage for me wasn’t likeable, being too random and maniacal to be comfortable with.

All said and done it was a lively couple of hours with a few laughs and a couple of twists.

When is Shannon-On? - 17.47

Outcome?  Working away in the evidence locker

Film 3/5

Shannon Stars 3/5