Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans details
| Formats: | 18 DVD, Blu-ray |
|---|---|
| Starring: | Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer |
| Director: | Werner Herzog |
| Genre: | Drama - Romantic |
| Studio: | ELEVATION SALES |
| Name | Discs | |
|---|---|---|
Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans |
18 Feature |
DVD Information
| Run time: | 2 hours 1 minute |
|---|---|
| Rental release: | 27 Sep 2010 |
| Main languages: | English |
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LOVEFiLM Review
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By Tom Charity from LOVEFiLMWerner Herzog's remake of Abel Ferrara's cult movie stars Nic Cage and Eva Mendes...
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Most helpful review
Bad Lieutenant,Port Of Call,New Orleans.
By joliver1 (9 reviews) from Edinburgh , 16 May 2010[Highly rated reviewer]
Set in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the films opens with Police Officers Terence McDonagh(Nic Cage) and Stevie Pruitt(Val Kilmer) cruelly discussing whether they should release a prisoner trapped in a cell rapdly filling with flood water.McDonagh does so but injures his back very badly in the process.He is prescribed pain management pills by his doctor , thus bgins his downward spiral into addiction.
The story jumps forward six months showing McDonagh leading a murder investigation into the brutal slaying of five people by Big Fate(Alvin Joiner),drug lord of the area, witnessed it is found out later by a grocery delivery boy.McDonagh's determination to get the job done is plainly seen through his ever more outrageous methods fuelled by his apparently insatiable appetite for drugs.This will be his downfall as his somewhat addled perception of the world around him(Iguanas anyone?) begins to affect his judgement and he is suspended from duty.This proves to be no more than a minor detail as he is soon on the loose again.
Just to complcate things there is also the small matter of his gambling addiction(witness his cruel manipulation of a key gridiron player to ensure that the game he is playing in is lost to clear his mounting debts), throw in collusion with a drug dealer, a drug dependant prostitute girlfriend and some very unsavoury mafia henchmen chasing him for a debt and you have an EXTREMELY Bad Lieutenant indeed!
Director Werner Herzog has in effect made an entirely new film bearing little or no resemblance to the Abel Ferrara version and has somehow managed to work in a redemption for McDonagh at the end, having watched the film it should not work but does.Sterling performances all round(welcome back Nic!),coupled with Herzog's directorial flair make this an excellent film,five stars I think!- Was this review helpful to you?
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(190)Somewhat quirky
By Tish2 (142 reviews) from London , 12 Feb 2013[Highly rated reviewer]
The crime genre isn’t really my thing, but I like to keep an eye on Herzog, and this is more or less a basic cop gone bad film with some snake/alligator/iguana oddities thrown in for good measure. I imagine that reptilian animal life rising to the surface because of Hurricane Katrina is a metaphor for the rise of corruption and the general breaking down of society as witnessed in this film. With expletives and drug taking aplenty, this isn’t the type of movie for the very mild at heart, although it didn’t seem overly sleazy to me. Nicolas Cage is the oddest thing about Bad Lieutenant and it begins with the premise that taking medication for an injured back leads him to addiction, although I can’t quite fathom out how entrenched in corruption he is to begin with, but before too long he is terrorizing elderly ladies to obtain the information he needs. His acting is wayward and he comes across like an agitated and speedy Lieutenant Columbo, which is at times more comic than menacing. Unfortunately this is a quirky, slightly better than average film that should have been made for TV or gone straight to video and probably would have if it didn’t have big stars and Herzog’s directing name above it.- Was this review helpful to you?
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Take two it or leave it
By a customer , 14 Jan 2013In a world saturated with sequels, threequels and prequels it would be a mistake to call this Herzog-Cage collaboration a “2. 0”, even after the remarkable film focussing on Catholic guilt created in the 1992 Keitel-Ferrara axis. Visually this is no remarkable film (for me), but neither does it rely upon the Cage-rage to build up its momentum. This is an unapologetic worldview on the rehabilitation of the mind, body and soul against the backdrop of the aftermath of the floods - caused by Hurricane Katrina - that laid waste to the Deep South. Nicolas Cage stars as Terence McDonagh; a well-meaning cop who may have seen too much, and sets out to perform his duties after sustaining an injury through an act of valour. McDonagh is plagued by this injury that makes him permanently reliant upon medication; but he is aided and abetted by an alcoholic father (tom Bower), prostitute girlfriend (Eva Mendes) and bullying thug for a detective partner (Val Kilmer). McDonagh is perhaps more accountable for the ills visited upon the community, that he had sworn to serve and protect, than he would like to remember. McDonagh’s character is a man so haunted by his past that he is somehow more permanently reliant upon himself – a trait shared by more than one character in this film. For me it made for interesting viewing to see a damaged man in a hallucinogenic decline dedicating himself to a solving a prominent homicide investigation; which sees him brush against the sleazy underbelly of New Orleans. McDonagh’s destiny leads him to encounter the kingpins of the underworld and face the untouchables in high society, who seem better equipped to navigate the swamp of crime and sleaze that has not washed away with the floods. As McDonagh's world tightens around him with bureaucracy, enemies and hallucinations Herzog’s film combines leaps of faith with leaps of the imagination. This may tread a common plot path of an intuitive detective serving his own brand of justice, but how often does the cop floats from one tragic character to the next in pursuit of his own idyllic convalesence? If you liked MATCHSTICK MEN (2003) you will enjoy Cage in this. It is hard to compare this to a previous Herzog film as he mainly does documentary, but ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (2007) may be a good start as you have to arrive from a different place to the 1992 film to really enjoy it. My only real grumble is that there are not too many visually arresting scenes and when the cinematography appears try something different it becomes noticeably bad. I feel there may have been an opportunity missed to use the visual style of Gus Van Sant's ELEPHANT (2003) to make this a better film visually.- Was this review helpful to you?
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This is a great action film
By Layman2 (3 reviews) , 10 Jan 2013This is a great film with no pulled punches action. The ending is a bit dull and inconsistant but Cages character's nialistic life style is gripping.- Was this review helpful to you?
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Not much brain required
By BerkshireFifi (8 reviews) from Thatcham , 05 Dec 2012Didn't enjoy this film at all. Maybe I missed the point. Nothing happened, but to be fair I didn't make it to the end. Good characters but not enough story.- Was this review helpful to you?
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Oh dear...What would Harvey think?
By CBotch (2 reviews) , 03 Nov 2012THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS Show review anywayHide
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