Bad Lieutenant – Port Of Call New Orleans (2009/First Look Blu-ray + DVD)

 

Picture: B-/C     Sound: B-     Extras: C+     Film: B-

 

 

When I heard Werner Herzog was going to remake Able Ferrera’s Bad Lieutenant, I thought it could be a disaster.  Nicolas Cage jumped on board to be the title character and wondered what might happen, especially since Herzog has been less involved with narrative film in recent years, though I liked Rescue Dawn.  Then they could not decide whether it was a remake or a sequel or just come out and admit they were exploiting a cult hit.  Then the film had very limited theatrical play and soon headed to Blu-ray and DVD, released by First Look.

 

Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a corrupt, rotten but successful police lieutenant taking advantage of all the troubles around him in New Orleans.  We see his mixed morals in an opening scene during the Hurricane Katrina fiasco and made worse by his screwy partner (Val Kilmer).  There is also his wild girlfriend (the underrated Eva Mendez) who enables his crazy behavior and excessive drug use.  He finds himself involved with the worst kind of people and his senseless, unwise behavior is about to catch up with him.

 

Not as bold as the original film with Harvey Keitel, the film is still very competent and decently written by William M. Finkelstein, whose long, consistent history of writing police dramas for works well here.  Along with a strong cast and freedom a hard R-rating allows, the film becomes its own affair separate from the Keitel/Ferrara picture.  Then half way through the film, an event happens so hilarious and unintentionally funny that we enter the world of the surreal and the film goes nuts for the rest of the time it plays.

 

In this case, that is a good thing and part of the reason this happens is that Herzog simply is not a director of such urban crime drama material.  As somewhat of an auteur, Herzog was not going to be constrained by a police procedural narrative, even if the main cop character was rotten.  Cage gives his wildest performance since Scorsese’s Bringing Out The Dead and the result is much better than I had expected.

Also making this interesting are Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner (in another good choice of film after the underrated American Violet), Fairuza Balk (her best feature performance since American History X), Jennifer Coolidge, Brad Dourif, Vondie Curtis-Hall (Eve’s Bayou, Falling Down) and Irma P. Hall.  Now that’s an all-star cast of talent that all makes sense to cast in the roles they have here.  Wish we saw that more often.

 

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on the Blu-ray was shot in Super 35mm by Herzog alumni Peter Zeitlinger and the result is the film has an interesting look, but this transfer can be soft too often and have more motion blur than expected.  That is still better than the very soft, Video Black weak, anamorphically enhanced DVD that does not do the film justice much at all.

 

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix on the Blu-ray is on the warm side, but has a limited soundfield and some mixing moments do not work as well as others, though Mark Isham’s score is good.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 on the DVD is not as warm as the True HD on the Blu-ray, but also hides some of the flaws of the overall mix.

 

Extras in both versions include a Theatrical Trailer, Alternate Trailer, Photos by Lena Herzog and a Making Of featurette that has no narration and just shows you plenty of footage best seen after seeing the film.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo