FILM CHALLENGE: 17) Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call - New Orleans

17) Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call - New Orleans

Director: Werner Herzog

Year: 2010

Plot Summary: After Katrina, police sergeant Terence McDonagh rescues a prisoner and hurts his back in the process earning a promotion to lieutenant plus an addiction to cocaine and painkillers. Six months later, a family is murdered over drugs and Terence runs the investigation.

I pride myself on being a fairly accurate when judging how good or bad a film will be. Based on its trailer, adverts, synopsis or cast and crew I seem to have a decent - yet utterly pointless - talent for being able to tell what a movie will be like and where its faults will probably lie.

While everyone around my raved about how good Iron Man 2 was going to be, I was one of the very few who rightly predicted that it would be an unnecessary sequel crammed with more special effects and comic book trademarks than an actual narrative. Moreover, I even predicted that Slumdog Millionaire would be a strong Oscar contender after seeing it in October 2008 at the London Film Festival despite people telling me The Curious Case of Benjamin Button would undoubtedly be the front-runner.

However, I hold my hands up high and admit that I was mostly wrong about Werner Herzog's sort of remake of Bad Lieutenant. Having hated the look of it since the first trailer was released months, I was very pessimistic about seeing this Nicholas Cage movie about a drug and gambling addicted detective investigating the killing of 5 immigrants in New Orleans. But it actually turned out to be a fairly entertaining piece of film-making.

Sure, the first hour of the film confirmed all my expectations. After a great opening scene, what follows is a loose narrative involving Cage using his power and authority to obtain drugs and indulge in gambling while solving a murder case that you really don't care much about. Moreover, he is seeing a prostitute whose presence in the film doesn't really contribute anything to the story and there is a sub-plot involving his father that, for a whole 60 minutes, doesn't develop whatsoever.

It's monotonous, tedious and is unsure about whether it wants to be The Wire or Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas stylistically. Despite it's attempts at being darkly comic and outrageous, nobody in the showing laughed at all and two people even walked out.

However, then comes the second half of the film in which Cage's detective begins to find himself cornered by his addiction, his debts, a group of hit men with a vengeance and fellow officers who are starting to grow wise of who he really is. From here, Bad Lieutenant really picks up and becomes surprisingly exciting, funny, shocking and entertaining. Literally in the space of five minutes, the prostitute, played by Eva Mendes, becomes an interesting character and one that is important to the narrative, the mystery story becomes more engrossing, Herzog's style falls into place, the family sub-plot develops into a key feature of the movie, and people in my showing started laughing and gasping with every twist and turn.

It isn't going to be the cult classic it set out to be and the below average first half lets it down, but Bad Lieutenant certainly rose above my expectations and ended up being a fairly fun, utterly crazy and pretty clever police drama with a twist.

3/5

By Daniel Sarath with 2 comments