“Bad Lieutenant”: So bad it’s good

Nicolas Cage plays one crazy-ass cop in Werner Herzog's loopy, cheerfully disreputable nonremake

By Stephanie Zacharek

Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes in "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans."

Topics:Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Movies

There’s a valuable lesson to be learned from “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans”: Two wrongs don’t make a right — it takes at least three. And Nicolas Cage, as detective Terence McDonagh, is a very bad lieutenant: An unrepentant, if highly functional, cokehead, he accosts and bullies unwitting club kids so he can steal their drugs and, possibly, have sex with their girlfriends. He has no compunction about playing rival crime bosses against one another if it will somehow help pay off his mounting gambling debts. He thinks nothing of choking off an old lady’s oxygen supply, if that’s what it takes to get her to listen up. And his closest friend, maybe the love of his life, is a high-class call girl named Frankie (Eva Mendes, who’s wonderful even when she’s barely trying). You can tell he really, really likes her by the way he shares his drugs with her: They’re like two kids bonding over the contents of a single Pixy Stix.

There’s already a great deal of buzz on Werner Herzog’s gonzo-arty, most definitely not-a-remake detective picture, and for good reason: “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is less like a movie than an interpretive-dance piece, with Cage as its lurching, depressed-satyr star. It’s important to note, first off, that Herzog’s picture has virtually nothing to do with Abel Ferrara’s 1992 “Bad Lieutenant,” even though the screenwriters of that picture get a credit here. (As far as the script goes, it’s William M. Finkelstein, who’s written episodes of “Law and Order,” “NYPD Blue,” “L.A. Law” and Steven Bochco’s short-lived musical police drama “Cop Rock,” who’s really holding the bag.)

And the plot details matter less than the picture’s overarching mood of lunacy: In post-Katrina New Orleans, a family of Senegalese immigrants, including several children, have been killed in what is clearly a drug-related crime. There’s one witness, a teenager who’d been making a grocery delivery to the household at the time (played by Denzel Whitaker, who, incidentally, is named after Denzel Washington but is no relation to Forest Whitaker). The kid is so important to the case that he’s obviously in a lot of danger — not that that matters to McDonagh, who’s more worried about scoring and finding a temporary caretaker for his dad’s dog: Pops (Tom Bower) is a former cop who’s trying to kick his own drinking problem, and his also somewhat boozy wife (Jennifer Coolidge) claims she can’t be bothered to look after this laid-back sweetpea of a golden lab, who trots through the movie with affable cluelessness. (Dog lovers might want to know that no harm befalls him.)

Things happen in “Bad Lieutenant,” all right — except it’s not always clear whether they’re actually happening or we only think they’re happening, which is part of Herzog’s nefarious plan. He builds his movie layer by crazy layer. Early on, as McDonagh and his partner (played by Val Kilmer) swagger through a near-empty prison (it’s been evacuated because of the hurricane), a lone trapped prisoner calls out for help. The waters are rising! Could someone please rescue him? Please? “Please what, shit-turd?” McDonagh shoots back, in a line I’m still not fully convinced I actually heard, or heard properly. (How might a “shit-turd” be distinguished from a simple “turd,” I’m wondering?) Then he says he can’t rescue the guy because he’s wearing $55 underpants. Then he dives in and rescues the guy. Perhaps you’re beginning to get the picture.

The interior scenes in “Bad Lieutenant” look as if they might have been lit with a Mini Maglite and some artfully arranged reflectors made of tinfoil. In many of the outdoor scenes, the sun bathes everything — houses, sidewalks — in an unpleasant bleached light. (The man behind these bad-on-purpose effects is cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, who has worked with Herzog on pictures like “Grizzly Man” and “Rescue Dawn.”) About two-thirds of the way through “Bad Lieutenant,” some of the novelty of Herzog’s purposeful, mannered ineptitude began to wear off. But by the end, I’d rallied, buoyed by the picture’s surprise ending.

I realize I haven’t even told you about the imaginary iguanas, or the break-dancing disembodied life force, or the semi-dead gator lying in the road, waving a single leg in defeat. Those details, strange and wonderful, are better seen than they are explained. But they’re not as strange and wonderful as Cage is. I’ve heard some people comparing this loose, relaxed (to the point of being unhinged) performance to the one Cage gave in “Leaving Las Vegas,” and I wouldn’t go that far: Cage isn’t diving into the abyss here — he’s merely dipping a toe into the murky whirlpool. But he’s great fun to watch, or at least as much fun as a corrupt, self-centered, foul-mouthed, back-pain-suffering, coke-addicted cop can ever be. Cage’s McDonagh is a troubled soul: He sometimes resembles a Max Beckmann charcoal drawing, all angular slashes and sunken shadows. And an early scene establishes that this character is in almost constant pain, which of course requires medication. (“Whatever I take’s prescription — except for the heroin,” he says at one point, with the disarming honesty of a schoolboy.) Because of that pain, his posture is stooped, and he does more stiff shuffling than actual walking — he’s a little Quasimodo, a little Frankenstein. Still, Cage is more fully alive as a performer than he’s been in years, giving a performance of gestures and expressions that don’t seem to be measured out with dollar signs attached. He may be limping, but at least he’s dancing.

: Stephanie Zacharek is a senior writer for Salon Arts & Entertainment. More Stephanie Zacharek

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Nic Cage: The genius of the full-throttle freak

At least he is never phoning it in: Why on-screen and off-, the Coppola can do anything ... except be normal

By Drew Grant

How could this face lie to you?

Topics:Celebrity, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Crime, New Orleans, Movies

This weekend, Nicolas Cage was arrested for domestic abuse charges in New Orleans after a drunken fight with his wife. New York magazine couldn’t help making the comparison to Charlie Sheen, perhaps as an apology for being late to the “female battery” outrage train after all major media outlets glossed over that particular section of Sheen’s history.

The only problem? Nic Cage was not involved in a “domestic assault.” He and his wife were drunkenly arguing about which house they lived in (LOL), he “grabbed her arm,” the cops came, and Nic screamed “Arrest me!” until they finally did. His wife is not pressing charges. Dog the Bounty Hunter bailed him out of jail.

Is this guy an alcoholic, freakish asshole? Maybe. But don’t compare Charlie Sheen’s abuse of women to Nic Cage fighting with his wife about what house they live in, because there is a difference between all the crazy shit Cage does, and Sheen beating up hookers, holding a knife to his wife’s throat, and having on-the-record statements from his female victims attesting to the physical violence inflicted upon them.

But more worrisome than this pseudo-slander against Cage is the claim from within our own ranks that Nicolas Cage has somehow become as fake and overblown in his real life as he reliably is in his films. From Mary Elizabeth Williams’ article, “Nicolas Cage: Even his arrest is a bore“:

For years now, Cage has been parlaying his loose cannon charisma and credibility as an acclaimed actor into an increasingly dreadful body of work. His fans — and they are still many — argue that there is a method to Cage’s cinematic histrionics, that those who criticize his unorthodox performances miss the bravery of them. But I think Cage is, at this point, the Stella Artois of acting: the thing so terrible and tasteless, people assume it has to be great … He’s now become as obviously false as the CGI that so often threatens to upstage him, a middle-aged man doing a parody of his younger, over-the-top self, like an inside-out version of his Charlie Bodell in “Peggy Sue Got Married.”

I would be one of those people that argue that Cage has a subversive method to his madness. In films where he is forced into a cookie-cutter role — be it action hero (“Gone in 60 Seconds,” “Ghost Rider,” “Con Air”), love interest (“Trapped in Paradise,” “The Family Man”) or detective/journalist/guy figuring stuff out (“Knowing,” “Wicker Man,” “Bangkok Dangerous,” “National Treasure”) — he hams it up to the point of self-parody.

And even then, he’s never phoning it in. If you’ve ever seen the “Wicker Man” mashup, or the one for “Vampire’s Kiss,” it’s impossible to claim that Cage is somehow boring to watch, even in terrible films.

But Cage can play it equally subtle, something people missed when they prematurely judged Werner Herzog’s ” The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans,” assuming Cage would spend the entire film frothing at the mouth. With the exception of an early scene involving a loaded gun as a sex toy, Cage keeps its relatively restrained throughout: letting viewers hold their breath for his inevitable freak-out, which comes in the film’s last 15 minutes.

As for his personal life, I admit that an egomaniac blowing through his money and getting in trouble for drunken brawls is yawn-worthy. But Nicolas Cage manages to do his celebrity insanity with a panache that puts Sheen and his ilk to shame. When a Nevada bank said Cage owed them $2.5 million, what did he do? He went to Vienna and held a press conference calling for the end of international crime.

What? Yes. Amazing. That is winning, my friends.

And even after the news of his bankruptcy was made public and he was forced to put his German castle on the market, Cage had a mausoleum constructed for himself in New Orleans, where he also owns several haunted houses. The mausoleum, by the way, is shaped like the Louvre.

The examples are endless: naming his son after the role Hollywood would never give him (Kal-El or the birth name of “Superman“); the after-hour street brawls in Romania (screaming “Respect me!”); the mere existence of his other son Weston, who has this amazing “Marilyn Manson-meets-WWF wrestler” thing going on. (And his own clothing line!)

Call Nicolas Cage what you want: a hack, a megalomaniac, a legitimately crazy person who believes in ghosts and can’t remember what haunted house he lives in. But boring? Never. Only Nic Cage could have taken that role from “The Rock” opposite Sean Connery and turned what was essentially the role of the straight man (He’s a scientist! He doesn’t know about guns!) into a work of art. His real life is no less weird or entertaining, making him the furthest thing from a “false” celebrity you can get. (Except for his hairpieces, since Nic’s real follicles haven’t been seen since “Leaving Las Vegas.”)

And boring? You’d have to bury him in his pyramid tomb first.

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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Werner Herzog among the demented iguanas

The legendary German eccentric on his most American film, the dirty, profane, dazzling non-remake "Bad Lieutenant"

By Andrew O'Hehir

Director Werner Herzog, left, and actor Nicolas Cage pose for a portrait at the 34th Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009. (AP Photo/Carlo Allegri) (Credit: Associated Press)

Topics:Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Beyond the Multiplex, Thrillers, Movies

If the essence of Werner Herzog could somehow be bottled and preserved, it could make a more effective remedy for clinical depression and seasonal affective disorder than anything found in the pharmacist’s cabinet. Whatever you make of the guy’s movies — a prodigious and often baffling output unlike anything else in cinema history — he’s the most irrepressibly optimistic man in show business. At one point in our recent phone conversation, he took a break from listing all his innovations and brewing projects and exclaimed in his trademark Bavaria-by-way-of-West L.A. drawl: “You name it — it just can’t get any better!”

Maybe “show business” sounds like a dis, when applied to a filmmaker who began as one of the young lions of 1970s New German Cinema (with “Aguirre: The Wrath of God” and “Nosferatu the Vampyre”), developed a global reputation for overweening ambition (mainly “Fitzcarraldo”) and then moved on to become a groundbreaking American documentarian (with films like “Grizzly Man” and the Oscar-nominated “Encounters at the End of the World”). I don’t mean it to. What I mean is that Herzog loves traveling the world making movies — lots and lots of movies — and showing them to as many people as possible.

While Herzog is endlessly imaginative about getting his films before the public in various forms, he has almost no interest in Hollywood or its internal machineries, and also isn’t much of a cinephile. When I asked him whether his grimy and delirious new cop drama “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” was inspired by the nihilistic American crime films of the ’70s, he insisted that he’s never seen most of those films. I mentioned “Taxi Driver” and “Chinatown,” and suggested that they were relatively well known pictures, and might strike some viewers as morally, tonally and visually influential on “Bad Lieutenant.”

You could pretty much hear Herzog scratching his head on the other end of the line. It emerged that he wasn’t sure what “Taxi Driver” was or who had made it. “Chinatown” rang more of a bell, and I reminded him that it was directed by a European auteur even more notorious than Herzog himself. He admitted he’d probably seen that one, but didn’t really remember it. American crime films from the ’40s and ’50s, though? Sure, he had seen them while growing up in postwar Germany.

Given that background, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Herzog has never seen Abel Ferrara’s 1992 “Bad Lieutenant,” which is nominally the basis for this film but has very little to do with William Finkelstein’s screenplay and almost nothing to do with Herzog’s finished product. For Herzog, making movies is about exploring the world and adventuring into unknown philosophical and artistic terrain. His relationship to film genres or cinema history or the other things critics love to talk about is minimal. So “Bad Lieutenant,” with its memorable lead performance by Nicolas Cage as a charismatic, agonized, drug-addicted and possibly schizophrenic New Orleans homicide detective, is, as Herzog puts it, a crime movie refracted through a demented prism.

Although the story of Cage’s character, Lt. Terry McDonagh, as he rises, falls and is improbably redeemed while trying to solve a gruesome drug-related massacre, is straightforward enough, Herzog leaves the genre’s dispassionate objectivity behind and shows us at least some of what happens in McDonagh’s mind. Hence the iguanas in his apartment (not visible to any other character), or the dead soul break-dancing on a drug dealer’s carpet. Or the shot from the point of view of a bereaved alligator. (Could I make something like that up?) It’s often difficult to decide which of McDonagh’s failings is the worst: When he makes a date with an incredibly hot highway patrol officer (Fairuza Balk), he’s cheating on his hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendes) — and then it turns out he’s only interested in the jackbooted tootsie for her access to confiscated narcotics.

When I spoke to Herzog on the phone, I hadn’t yet seen his other new release this season, the still more demented cop drama “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?,” in which Willem Dafoe plays the San Diego cop trying to unravel the reasons why a messianic murder suspect (Michael Shannon) is holed up in his house with a pair of flamingos. If “Bad Lieutenant” is something close to a work of dirty, profane genius, “My Son, My Son” is a mixed bag, with patches of dark-comic brilliance and an uneven plot that flirts with shaggy-dog obscurantism. (It’s getting a small-scale theatrical release, beginning in December, from Absurda, David Lynch’s company.)

Both pictures are unmistakably the work of one of the strangest and bravest of contemporary filmmakers, a man who has combined a wire walker’s level of artistic daring with a work ethic that would have made his Bavarian grandparents proud. Werner Herzog called me from his home in Los Angeles, a few days before the theatrical opening of “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.”

Werner, I know you’ve had some difficulty getting narrative feature projects off the ground in recent years. And you’ve made so many great documentaries — I pretty much assumed you’d do that for the rest of your career. But with “Rescue Dawn” and now “Bad Lieutenant” and “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?” you’re a narrative filmmaker again, which must be gratifying.

Look, let’s face it, in the last 10 years I made four feature films, which is quite a lot, according to Hollywood standards. But in fact I’ve made 15 or so [total films] in the last 10 years. It’s not being back, because I was never away from it, and the next four or five projects are all feature films too. Of course there’s some documentary stuff as well. Those are like home invasions: uninvited guests that I have to wrestle somehow!

You’ve never made a film before that felt as specifically American, in setting and tone, as this one does.

Well, no. I’m now completely comfortable making a film in English. If you look at this film or at “My Son, My Son,” you would never guess that somebody made it whose first language is not English. I’ve settled in very comfortably, and you see I’ve never stood still. I’ve been out here looking for new horizons, new projects, new alliances with production companies, new forms of distribution, new actors. You just name it, it just can’t get any better!

“Bad Lieutenant” is also an American film in the sense that it belongs to such a familiar genre. Are you a fan of American crime films ?

No. I must confess I hardly ever have seen any of them, neither on TV or in the theaters. Some of the film noirs of the early ’50s and late ’40s, but that’s about it. I suppose this is a genre film, in a way. But you see, there’s a clear stamp on it. There are things that are not in the screenplay that came into it, which I kept inventing en route, like the demented iguana or the dancing soul. I had the feeling, “Yeah, there is a certain genre here, but I shouldn’t be completely docile. Just be imaginative and go wild!”

You have the iguanas and you have an alligator point-of-view shot. Do reptiles have some symbolic importance in this movie?

No, I think it’s just — these reptiles are not even visible to anyone else. When the bad lieutenant says, “What are these iguanas doing on my coffee table?” the other guys say, “There ain’t no iguana!” It’s just a demented sort of vision under drugs.

Nicolas Cage’s performance in this movie is amazing. The character is both irresistible and thoroughly despicable. I wasn’t sure whether I loved him or hated him, which may be exactly what you guys were going for.

You can see the film the way you want to see it, I do not want to dictate that. But one thing is obvious: He is absolutely formidable. Hold on, please, that’s the door. A double espresso is coming to keep me awake! I’m sorry, I lost your last question.

We were talking about Nic and his character. You said he was “formidable.“

Yes, you see, there’s something which was guiding us. I told Nicolas that there’s such a thing as, like, the bliss of evil. Let’s go for it! Enjoy yourself! The more vile and the more debased you get, the more you have to enjoy it. That creates this very strange and very subversive humor.

This is another frame of reference, but you may appreciate it. He reminded me of the demons in Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings of hell: He’s hunchbacked, leering, with this insane gleam in his eye.

Yeah, yeah, yeah! You are the first one to mention that, but I think it’s not completely far-fetched. I think there was a basic pose or physical appearance for him. We talked about it quickly, and Nicolas asked me what he should look like. The character has a back injury, and I told him, “I would like to see you with a slanted shoulder line, preceded by your gaze.” Which is exactly what he does! Sometimes I give very laconic, condensed instructions, which you see throughout the film.

So I gather that when I say this film reminds me of certain of the nihilistic American crime films of the ’70s, that doesn’t mean much to you?

No, I don’t know those films. I can tell you where it comes from, it comes from the screenplay. Billy Finkelstein, who wrote the screenplay — wonderful dialogue and a very intense story — has profound knowledge of this genre. He has written a lot for television — I don’t even remember the series ["Law & Order" and "NYPD Blue," among others] — but he’s a very experienced man in this field, and brought this knowledge into the film.

Tell me about the way you and Peter Zeitlinger, your cinematographer, envisioned the film. We’re not exactly seeing the world from the Cage character’s point of view, because he’s in almost every shot. But nonetheless we’re seeing the world as he sees it.

Not in all instances, but of course there’s a tendency toward that. Sometimes it’s a demented view. He’s the only one who sees those iguanas, for instance, and of course the secret conspiracy is that we, the audience, see them as well.

I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but maybe we can talk about the strange scene near the end of the film where everything that has gone wrong in McDonagh’s story suddenly goes right. All the narrative obstacles suddenly melt away, in about 15 seconds. It seems like a fantasy, it seems as if it can’t be real. Is that what you intend?

Yes, exactly. That’s very well observed. Besides, it gives the feeling and hope of a false ending, a happy ending that does not really occur. It goes into overdrive, in a way. It was clearly scripted, and it was a very good idea. We almost have a deus ex machina, which floats down from the sky and settles everything for the good. Except that it does not!

You have such a tremendous cast here. I loved all these actors: Nic Cage and Eva Mendes, of course, but also Brad Dourif, whom you work with a lot, as a bookie; Vondie Curtis-Hall, as Nic’s superior officer; Jennifer Coolidge, as his alcoholic stepmother. And the rapper Xzibit [Alvin Joiner], who is just terrific as the drug lord.

I’m always very careful and cautious about casting. It’s not just about putting names together. There has to be a texture, and what you probably have seen is that every single actor in this film, including the smallest speaking parts, is always at their very best. There’s absolutely no doubt in my heart. And don’t forget the writer, Billy Finkelstein, who plays a gangster, the one in the pink jacket whose soul is dancing. The writer turned out to be a very fine actor.

Again, without giving anything away your ending really defies expectations. I’m not quite sure what to think about it, in fact. We expect one of two possible endings — the bad lieutenant triumphs, or he is punished for his misdeeds. And you really don’t give us either one.

In my opinion, it’s a very beautiful and very mysterious ending. You see, according to the screenplay, it ended with a false happy ending that became a real abyss of darkness. And I thought, no, we should not dismiss the audience like that, out into the street. There should be something vague, something poetic, something mysterious.

That’s yet another way this film reminds me of both “Chinatown” and “Taxi Driver.” I’m sure other journalists have brought those films up.

Actually, nobody has asked me that. People sometimes ask me about Abel Ferrara, and I’ve never seen his film. Now that my film is out, people can see that it’s nothing like a remake. What can I say? Now, as to “Taxi Driver,” I’ve never seen it. “Chinatown” I believe I saw, but that was a long time ago. I’ve forgotten that film.

“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is now playing in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities, with wider release to follow.