Bad Lieutenant (trailer)

THE FILM THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT NICOLAS CAGE



Director: Werner Herzog
Writer: William M. Finkelstein
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes
Release: 20th November 2009

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans stars Nicolas Cage as a crooked and drug-addicted cop. While it has been called a remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992 Bad Lieutenant, Herzog claims he has never heard of Ferrara. Ferrera is outraged by the new film, saying of the cast and crew, “I hope they're all in the same streetcar, and it blows up.” Good luck, Werner!

The main draw of the film for me is undoubtedly Nicolas Cage in what looks to be a decent acting role. Cage’s name is now almost a byword for over-the-top, caricatured acting and a terrible choice of roles. From Con Air, as the two-dimensional family man Cameron Poe, to the unwittingly hilarious remake of The Wicker Man – “How’d it get burned, how’d it get burned, how’d it get burned?” – Cage has rightly come under a lot of fire. I have a feeling this film could change all that.

Herzog has proven he can handle a mainstream Hollywood movie with Rescue Dawn, and as a director with a keen eye for the weird, I believe he can bring the story of a hallucinating cop to life. His presence suggests that this will not be just another cookie-cutter crime drama.

The cast besides Cage is encouraging. Val Kilmer has already proven his crime movie mettle in both Heat and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, my favourite film of all time. He is joined by Eva Mendes and Alvin ‘Xzibit’ Joiner, already established as a rapper-turned actor.

This looks to be one of Cage’s least sympathetic roles yet, and possibly his weirdest. Playing such an obnoxious, selfish bastard could be liberating for him, allowing him to put his weird, lanky screen presence to good use. And from the look of the trailer, he’s fed some brilliant one-liners: “What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?”, “This is my lucky crack pipe.”

Even if this film isn’t Cage’s redemption, the novelty of seeing him fire a gun in the air while grabbing a woman’s naked arse just might make me see it anyway. Fingers crossed.