Ahoy, squirts! Quint here writing from up in the mountains of Colorado. I’ve seen some great films so far, but the hectic schedule has had me neglecting immediate write-ups. I’m in catch-up mode, writing between movies, but no matter how hard I tried to start with some movies from the last two days I just couldn’t… I just got out of THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS and that’s what I have to talk about.
I’ve already posted the trailer, but I have to embed it again.
If you haven’t already, watch that trailer. I’ll wait.
Welcome back! That above montage of clips is a rarity in the film publicity world. That trailer is the movie without giving everything away. If you watched that trailer and, like me, think you’re going to get some enjoyment out of a movie like that then I’m here to state that’s exactly what you get. Yep, iguanas, lucky crackpipes, dancing souls… it’s all there under the sketchy leadership of a crazed Nicolas Cage and the watchful, twisted eye of Werner Herzog.
Now, up front… It’s been at least 15 years since I saw Abel Ferrara’s BAD LIEUTENANT and hazy doesn’t even begin to describe my recollection of that film. So I can’t compare the two, but from what I understand there isn’t a comparison to be made. This is a different cop, different story, different city, but in the same fucked up universe.
There are going to be people who mistake this for a bad movie, a “so bad it’s good” type film. I’m preemptively saying those guys are full of shit. For a movie to be a so bad it’s good type it has to be unintentionally funny, the filmmaker utterly failing at trying to make the movie he or she set out to. There is no doubt in my mind, coming from Millennium Films and Werner Herzog, that this movie isn’t exactly what they set out to make.
Nicolas Cage is crazy over-the-top as Lt. Terence McDonagh, but that’s the character. It’s a perfect match of actor and material. Terry’s a gambling man, a drug-addicted boyfriend of a hot hooker… a gentleman he is not. When a family of African immigrants are brutally murdered he and his even crazier partner, played by Val Kilmer, are tasked to solve the crime.
But it’s not really about that. Terry doesn’t come to some deep realization through his pursuit of the killers. The movie’s more about his lifestyle causing a deep spiral into insanity, putting the few things he enjoys in life (his job, his hooker girl, played by Eva Mendes, his steady supply of drugs from the police locker) in jeopardy.
The flick opens following a snake gliding through the floodwaters as Katrina rages. That snake leads us to the flooded police station where Cage and Kilmer are picking up a bundle of nudie pictures a colleague left in his locker. The visual hand-off between the snake and Terry wasn’t lost on me.
While securing their buddy’s embarrassing photos they also discover one of the suspects in holding wasn’t relocated and his cell is about 2/3rds flooded. The man begs and pleads to both Kilmer and Cage who just laugh and start betting on when the flood waters will overtake him… gambling on the hour this man will drown.
However, for all the show, Terry still shows a little humanity here. Kilmer is ready to walk out and let the coroner’s report show the time of death to settle the bet when Cage says fuck it and jumps into the water to save the guy.
In doing this he hurts his back and that’s what really sends him down the rabbit hole. He’ll have constant back pain for the rest of his life and the prescription drugs aren’t enough for him, so he turns to coke and harder drugs.
Terry’s a fascinating character. He’s strong, he doesn’t take any shit, he’s smart… but he’s such a fucking loser. He owes thousands to his bookie (Brad Dourif) and seems to get on everybody’s bad side. Pretty soon those pile up to an amount he can’t keep up with and the second half of the movie is a free for all scramble for Cage.
But even though he’s a loser, he’s a lucky loser and his luck is a continuing theme throughout the movie.
I went into this movie hoping for something as fucked up and crazy as the trailer… something that delivered on the entertainment promise that trailer made and I got it.
I’m loving Millennium Films now. This movie shouldn’t exist and wouldn’t exist in a sane, safe studio environment, but Millennium are proving themselves to be a new house of fun. They gave us RAMBO, they’re giving us EXPENDABLES… sure, there’s some trash in there, but the point is they’re making crazy weird exploitation movies, getting real directors and real actors to make it even more bizarre.
If they stay the course and keep on pumping these kinds of movies out I can see them being the bigger budget modern day equivalent of Roger Corman’s AIP.
As it is this movie is so fun, so entertainingly wrong and filled with fucking weird tangents that it made a fast fan out of me. There's literally a 2 1/2 minute sequence set to music of different shots of Nic Cage giving a pair of iguanas the stink eye. It's like macro photography, close up on the iguanas doing what iguanas do with Cage starring them down in the background. So awesome!
Cage came out after the movie to do a little Q&A. I just bought a Flip Ultra HD camera and I recorded it from my seat. I’m going to test the footage out tonight, see if it turned out at all, if the sound is okay… if it is I’ll throw it up and embed it to the site.
Alright, one review down. More to come… Gonna try to knock out my thoughts on Jason Reitman’s UP IN THE AIR, which is the talk of the festival so far, tonight before crashing. Tomorrow’s the final day of the fest and a good catch-up day for movies I missed out on the last couple of days… I know I’m seeing THE ROAD then. So keep an eye out!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
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