Bad cop, worse cop

There comes a point somewhere into Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans when you wonder: Is Nicolas Cage really up to this? Is he fully committed and capable of upping the ante on Abel Ferrera’s 1992 original Bad Lieutenant (starring Karvey Keitel), which was already several leagues over the top?

Sure, playing New Orleans cop Terrence McDonagh, wounded in a rescue effort shortly after Hurricane Katrina, he hooks down prescription Vicodin, snorts lots of coke, acts like a degenerate and walks with an off-kilter stoop like King Richard III. But no major psycho fireworks occur for about 20 minutes.

Then, in a dark parking lot, while shaking down a woozy couple for drugs, his head does this sideways fling; it’s a tic that seems almost involuntarily. He does so after inhaling a hit of crack and forcing the poor guy’s girlfriend to perform fellatio on him. There’s a hollow expression on his face, as though tuned in to some distant clarion call. Then he raises his .45 Magnum to the air and fires it in exultation.

You still got it, Nic.

A lot of people have been praising Cage’s performance in this “reimagining” of the far grittier, darker movie by Martin Scorsese disciple Ferrera. For the quirky actor who’s long seemed content to do National Treasure sequels and collect comic books and castles, they say it’s a “return to form.” They must have meant the form of a demented reptile.

For, if Keitel’s New York cop investigating the rape of a nun in New York City circa 1992 was the cinematic personification of a wild dog, alternating his bouts with the crack pipe with wrench-faced rounds of keening and wailing, then Nicolas Cage is all iguana: lazy-lidded, slow-moving, a bit too intelligent to marshal our full sympathies, but cagey enough to engage us. He doesn’t seem in a great deal of pain, just the victim of his own bad — and occasionally good — impulses.

Prescription Vicodin quickly leads to coke, which leads to heroin and raiding police evidence lockers for confiscated dope. On the side, McDonagh has call-girl-with-a-heart-of-gold Frankie (Eva Mendes) to share his dubious proclivities with, and a pile of gambling debts racked up with increasingly agitated bookie Ned (a ponytailed Brad Dourif). McDonagh is also feeling the squeeze from fellow corrupt detective Stevie (Val Kilmer) and a drug kingpin responsible for a quintet of gruesome murders (played by Xzibit).

You’ve got to give Herzog props for oddball casting. The gallery of character actors alone is enough to keep you sufficiently intrigued — you keep wondering what kind of whacked-out shinola is gonna hit the screen next.

Much of it comes from Cage. But special mention must be made of the catfight fireworks between call girl Frankie and McDonagh’s alcoholic stepmother (Jennifer Coolidge in pure trailer park glory). Oh, and a special appearance by the “iguana-cam” — which shows up at a roadside crash site and dances around the edges of McDonagh’s increasingly hallucinatory vision for the rest of the film. “What are those iguanas doing on my coffee table?” Cage asks his puzzled fellow cops at one point.

The curious thing is, Herzog claims this isn’t a remake at all. In truth, while the bare outlines of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans resemble the ’92 version — cop investigates murder, does a lot of drugs, racks up gambling debts, seeks redemption — not much else here does. Title aside, the German director (Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Fitzcarraldo, Rescue Dawn) claims he’s never even seen Ferrera’s movie — why, he’s never even heard of Abel Ferrera. Ouch. But this is understandable, considering Ferrera’s vitriolic reaction to Herzog’s film, according to hollywoodreporter.com: “As far as remakes go... I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they’re all in the same streetcar, and it blows up.”

Pretty harsh. Anyway, if it’s meant as a stand-alone original, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans definitely earns the “bad movie with artistic pretensions” seal of approval reserved for classics like Wild Things. As remakes go, though, it’s an interesting commentary on the original, which seemed locked in its specific time and place: NYC, the early days of crack, with heavy Catholic imagery and heavy metal rap decorating the soundtrack. Ferrera had a way of unleashing Keitel’s inner animal: his performance was far creepier and sympathetic — almost poetic — than Cage’s. One scene I recall shows Keitel, on-duty, cavorting with prostitutes in a cheap hotel room, sucking the crack pipe as usual. An old ‘60s R&B number plays as Keitel, naked, faces the camera and stretches out his arms, moving them in the approximation of a tortured marionette. As an image, you’re left wondering: is Keitel’s bad lieutenant God’s puppet, the Devil’s, or is he simply jerked about by the strings of his own inner demons?

No such gritty poetry in Herzog’s southern locale, which focuses on civility even amid the most heinous behavior. At one point, McDonagh, trying to locate a murder witness, cuts off the oxygen tubes of an old woman in a rest home, barking: “I’m still trying to remain courteous, but I’m beginning to think that’s getting in the way of my being effective!”

William Finkelstein’s script — glossing the original or not — is full of such gems, lines you’ll be reciting at drunken parties for years to come. Denying he’s on drugs, McDonagh tells a fellow cop: “That’s not true. Whatever I take is prescription, except for the heroin.” And of course, there’s the classic bit that raises the bar on self-indulgent craziness even higher than someone like David Lynch or Terry Gilliam would dare. After the drug kingpin’s men shoot down the local Mafioso, McDonagh looks down at the bloody body and barks: “Shoot him again! I can still see his soul dancing!” Then he laughs like a madman, and the camera cuts to the corpse, which we now see is break-dancing in wild abandon (!). It has to be seen to be believed.

That’s right: even Lynch and Gilliam might look at that in a script and say: “Nah, I can’t go there. That would be… nuts.”

Go, Werner. Go, Nic.