Very Bad Things

Werner Herzog interprets the word ‘remake’ rather loosely in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. It’s based on the controversial 1992 Abel Ferrera movie, which saw Harvey Keitel abusing his authority, rampaging around LA in order to find good drugs, bad sex and worse.

In Herzog’s remake, Nicholas Cage is the bad lieutenant. Cage’s ... resorts to self-medication after an accident involving a permanent disfiguration to his spine; his doctor’s prescription of vicodin clearly proving insufficient. One year - and one bravery medal - after the accident, things have changed. He has a prostitute girlfriend, snorts cocaine and smokes crack. He’s also investigating a gangland massacre, in which five people were shot dead in an apartment.

Essentially, Herzog is donning his Hollywood hat once more, after his first brush with the industry with 2007’s Rescue Dawn. Like that movie – and, in fact, like most of his movies – it’s another story of a man who is part maverick, part maniac. And again like that movie, it’s almost mainstream.

Do note the word ‘almost’ in that sentence. There is a lot of darkness in The Bad Lieutenant. Terrence violently uses an old woman as bait to get her carer to talk. Cage abuses both his weapon and his gun so a stoned woman can avoid prosecution.

And like Terrence, the movie is also off its rocker. The amount of depicted drug taking alone earned The Bad Lieutenant an eighteen certificate. Cage’s character ingests so many substances, he sees lizards on coffee tables and the souls of dead old white men dancing. The casting is also a little left-field. Jennifer Coolidge turns up as an old lush, Val Kilmer is a dour cop and 90s survivor Fariuza Balk is a bent cop with a great body.

It’s exactly what you expect from Herzog. It is inherently bizarre. Which, depending on how you look at it, is either brilliant or rather boring.