The original Bad Lieutenant, directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Harvey Keitel in a mesmerizing, broken and constantly sinking performance, is not merely a spectacular movie on its own but also slots in as a black sheep in the “New York Movie” subgenre. The gritty 1992 piece is visibly dirty, and is most infamous for Keitel’s full-frontal nude scene.

But its biggest takeaway should be its insistence on its ending. The whole film is a ‘f*ck you’ movement, and dovetails in its protagonist (and we specifically do not use the word “hero” or even “antihero” here) being shot dead by loan sharks in a drive by. The surrounding denizens of NYC watch the act and mostly go about their day. Hey, this is New York!

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Another Bad Lieutenant Should Have Been Bad

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Considering the unfortunate remake culture that the late ’00s and ’10s got into the habit of, news of another Bad Lieutenant would quite rightfully have been met with bold groans. Tally that up with the inclusion of a late ’00s Nicolas Cage and anyone uninterested would have been right to dismiss the project as nothing more than a cash grab with a known IP for a title. The ever outspoken Ferrara reportedly loathed the idea of a new version of his movie, but the fact that the legendary director Werner Herzog was behind the new film sparked some interest.

In an article from all the way back in 2008 titled “The Bad Lieutenant is NOT a Remake!”, director Werner Herzog said to Coming Soon:

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The great German director was deflecting at the time, and even went so far as to insist that he hadn’t even seen the original film, telling MTV News, “I haven’t seen [Bad Lieutenant], so I can’t compare it. It has nothing to do with it.” But he’s not wrong, and it is far better to look at Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans as a sequel, or to continue the Bond analogy, a continuation.

“No, it’s not a remake. […] You have to delete that from your memory, though we may not be able to delete it from public perception. It’s like I keep saying, ‘A James Bond film, the newest one, is not a remake of the previous one; it’s a completely different story.’ It only has a corrupt policeman as the central character and that’s about it.”

So how does one follow up on a cult classic movie so radioactively self-loathing like Bad Lieutenant? Something so bleak and nihilistic? The answer was to make the next Bad Lieutenant its own thing, while making it just as angry and hateful. But make it w e i r d.

Bad Lieutenant: Good Cop/Sad Cop

Port of Call New Orleans is very much an update, setting its story immediately following Hurricane Katrina. In its very first scene, Nicolas Cage with his lanky frame sweatily plastered inside a cheap gray suit, plunges into a pool of water to save a caged prisoner who within time will drown as the water rises. From his slack delivery and almost bored persona you fear that Nic’s on autopilot again, but the very next scene indicates the tone for the rest of the run time - in a doctor’s office, it’s revealed that Cage’s Terence McDonagh severely hurt his back from doing the right thing and saving the man, and will suffer for the rest of his life as a result.

The plot to Port of Call is very simplistic, and one thinks intentionally so. A family has been murdered, and a newly promoted Lieutenant (Cage) must find out who did it. What the screenplay then decides to do is to just use this as a footnote to its protagonist’s many, many vices, a dizzying array of drugs that have been entirely normalized into Terence’s life (“you don’t have a lucky crack pipe?” he asks). Terence goes from one crime scene to another driven by his own drug problem. As he circles the drain, he claws at any hard drugs he can find on his way down, and the story becomes secondary to his hallucinatory descent into his own psyche.

Cage pings through the run-time like some messed up pied piper, a man devastated by substance use but, like a racehorse, seems to be unable to stop for fear of an exploding heart (or soul). Terence steals any drugs he can find, hassling anyone who might have some or straight up stealing it from the big bads. The post-Katrina New Orleans is reflective of the cop on screen, broken and dilapidated, and yet still functioning.

Werner Herzog Asks: Do Fish Have Dreams?

Helming the picture is the esteemed Werner Herzog. Perhaps best as a documentary director (in a vast career of 31 feature-length docs and 20 narrative features), the mere premise of getting the man onboard feels like the reason that this film worked at all. The combination of Herzog telling Cage what to do, on top of the actor improvising some of his own lines, is a meshing of two bonkers factions like some starved cobra versus a rabid mongoose. The result really is terrific.

On top of Cage’s own barmy performance - entirely cranked up to 11, definitely over-the-top but totally right for the film - Herzog adds bizarre segments that only Terence can see. Fueled by Class A narcotics, live iguanas are shot in extreme close up as Cage can only nervously observe them in the background. Towards the end, Terence sees a gunned down enforcer’s “spirit, still dancing,” It’s a movie that recognizes that its protagonist is a dirty cop and an addict, and not just follows his own binge but seems like a manifestation of it. It meanders and bends to the character’s car wreck of a lifestyle, and like the animals showcased so intimately and sporadically in the film, we are but spectators on Terence’s misshapen journey.

It’s Not Perfect, But Port of Call New Orleans is Wonderfully Weird

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans does noticeably deflate at the halfway point, slowing all the way down to a halt. This is a movie that intentionally doesn’t attempt to follow much of any structure and succeeds at that, but when the focus shifts more towards Frankie (Eva Mendez) and her issues, the momentum takes a long time to return again. Mendez is a spectacular actress, but her whole arc is sort of thankless here. That said, the rest of supporting cast shine, with Jennifer Coolidge, Val Kilmer, Brad Dourif, and Xzibit all stealing scenes from the fiery hot air balloon that is Cage.

It is certainly odd, but nevertheless distinct, and coherently not a poor copy of its predecessor. It’s a movie that begins hungover and feels like the cinematic equivalent of an overdose by the end, but each scene can’t help but roll up the note and do just one more line. It’s hard to say whether this really is Nicolas Cage’s weirdest movie (he’s headlined David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman movies, after all, along with whatever the hell Vampire’s Kiss was); with a career spanning three decades, there’s so many to pick from. But it is undoubtedly up there as one of the weirdest, and when discussing a character like Nicolas Cage, that’s something to behold.