So Bad It's Good

In the long line of loopy Nicolas Cage movies, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans has to be one of the loopiest. Cage is a lieutenant with the new orleans police who hurts is back rescuing a prisoner from a cell after hurricane katrina. That leaves him with constant back pain and addiction to vicodin. Soon he's doing cocaine in his squad car and running around crime scenes with that crazy glint in his eye. The film establishes Cage's loopy behavior almost from the get-go when he pulls up to a crime scene and parks his squad car almost in the front door of a building instead of the street.

Ostensibly Cage is trying to track down the drug dealers who killed a family of illegal immigrants who just happened to be selling drugs on the wrong guys turf. But director werner Herzog shows little to no interest in the procedurals of the case. He's much more interested in Cage's loony descent into near madness, along with drugs, hookers, italian hoods, crooked cops, and his bookie.
This leads up to what can only be called lizard cam- where for reasons unbeknownst to me we get a montage of footage as seen from the eyes of the lizards who keep popping up around louisiana.

Cage hasn't been this unhinged since he donned a bear suit and went around punching women in the face in "The Wicker Man." After a while I found myself willing to suspend disbelief and just enjoying the ride. Cage won't win any awards for this role, but dammit if it wasn't entertaining.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans- B