Let's be honest, Nicolas Cage is only really good at one thing: Going overboard. When was the last time you liked him in anything that called for a little subtlety? Probably been awhile, or rarely if at all. It's when he's at his absolute craziest, the most wildly overblown and overly gestured that he's doing his best work. We're talkin' Wild at Heart Nicolas Cage, all tics and shakes and shudders and hip mannerisms. So it's to all of our benefit that he's the lead dog here, and to say he puts on brilliant succulent ham of a performance is to do an injustice to pigs everywhere.
Cage plays Terence McDonagh, the dirtiest of all dirty cops. He patrols the beat that is New Orleans, just after Hurricane Katrina. The city is obviously a shambles and crime is rampant. There are sharks in the water circling everywhere, and most of them are carrying a badge and gun. Terence has just been made Lieutenant, after injuring his back rescuing someone from a flooding prison. It's a monumentally bad decision.
Terence doesn't really have a drug problem, he's got a drug solution. It's his cure for everything. Terence finds ways to score drugs in every way imaginable, and since he's the lead cop in charge, who's gonna stop him? His girlfriend, Frankie(Eva Mendes), is also a drug addict. She's also a prostitute, but they look out for eachother and their mutual "interest". He cheats on her, but somehow I'm doubting either one is all that concerned with monogomy.
Terence's downward spiral is the stuff of legend. He has a bookie that he routinely stiffs on his payment. He's in cahoots with a local rapper turned drug kingpin(Xzibit). He's the lead investigator on a murder case he could give two frigs about, and openly admits it. He's also got a weird fascination with lizards, which I'm not about to try to explain here. I'll chalk that up to director Werner Herzog's obsession with nature. Plus, Terence has a habit of pissing off the wrong people.
Herzog takes an approach to chronicling Terence's career the same way he does his many other man vs. nature films(Grizzly Man, September Dawn). We're a passive observer of this wild creature on the brink of ultimate disaster, and the journey to rock bottom is paved with sharp edges. Often times the camera sits just over Nic Cage's shoulder, as if we are following behind him recording his every ill advised decision.
The film gets it's name and premise from the 1992 Abel Farrara film, which starred Harvey Keitel. Although I never saw that film, which many consider a masterpiece, I have my doubts that it has any of the sheer zaniness of this film. This is Werner Herzog, afterall. This is Nicolas Cage, and no disrespect to Farrara or Keitel, but I'll take this pair of nuts over them any day. Bad Lieutenant is the wackiest film I've seen all year. This is Nicolas Cage's best performance in ages. Who else but Cage can make you not hate a guy who cuts off an old lady's air supply and holds her friend at gunpoint? Who else but Herzog can spend five minutes with singing alligators and iguanas(in the middle of a stake out no less!) and somehow have it all make sense?
Bad Lieutenant is one of the best films of the year. This is the Nicolas Cage I love, and I know some love to hate. This film won't be for everyone. It'll drive some people bonkers, but for those who get it, it'll be a ride you'll never forget.
8/10
