David Lynch once referred to Nicholas Cage as, “the jazz musician of actors”; capricious in his behaviour, unpredictable in his choice of work. Werner Herzog’s The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans therefore fits perfectly into the Cage canon. The origin’s of Cage’s dirty cop, McDonagh, are slightly blurred by the insistence of Herzog that he was unfamiliar with Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant (1992), in which Harvey Keitel turned in a crazed and hypnotic performance. Yet there are too many similarities (the title being just one) to suggest this is the case, and while cinema history is replete with dirty cops, it seems likely that Herzog’s film, while not a remake, is certainly influenced more by Ferrara’s interpretation than any other.
Through their behaviour, corrupt police often draw laughs, whether it’s The Wire’s McNulty inventing a serial killer for overtime or Ray Liotta’s Henry Oak in Narc, after an informant asks for a hit during questioning stating, “It’s impossible you’re this dumb”. Yet these are serious characters in situations and environments that are drawn realistically and carry serious weight in their stories. To its discredit, The Bad Lieutenant and Cage’s performance are played for laughs. Subsequently, the story of a family executed by a drug lord is merely a tool to allow Cage’s performance to progress and Herzog’s camera to explore and add to the hyperbole of the acting. McDonagh is without doubt a dirty cop; he steals drugs like it’s a second job; he gambles; he accepts sexual favours for leniency and, perhaps at his most despicable, he cuts off the air supply for a wheelchair bound old lady before declaring she is what is wrong with America. Cage pulls all this off with a crooked style and is mostly believable in the role. He has an incredible ability to switch instantly between crazed unpredictability, tenderness (the silver spoon scenes) and desperation. Yet the direction to play this as a comedic character lets him down and never allows him or us to really get under the skin of McDonagh. The performance is too big, too distracting to allow us to attach ourselves to McDonagh on any relatable level. Neither is this such a departure for Cage that we are convincingly with the character at all times. He played a similar character better in Scorsese’s Bringing out the Dead (1999) and has been far more memorable in Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and Adaptation (2002).
Herzog’s past films suggest an interest in larger than life characters that are altered by or change their environments. His documentaries including, Encounters at the End of the World (2007) and Grizzly Man (2005) show characters that come alive through their interaction with their surroundings. The protagonists of Fitcarraldo (1982) and Rescue Dawn (2007) must battle their environments to survive. Here, New Orleans, interesting as it is to see the underbelly of a city used so infrequently in cinema, has no impact on McDonagh past the opening scene; he moves around the city, but is not part of it in the same way Popeye Doyle manipulated while at the same time lived off the vibrancy of New York City in The French Connection (1971). Therefore, The Bad Lieutenant does not feel like a Herzog film. The visual flair (animal close ups, break dancing souls) while good to look at feel tacked on to remind us what a crazy film this is. In fact, this is a very standard story disguised behind tricks that exists on a surface level only.
One last point, which may be nitpicking unnecessarily, is how bad a lieutenant exactly is McDonagh. Obviously the answer is very, but what leads him to such reprehensible behaviour is an addiction to drugs that has arisen through a heroic act. As McDonagh and Pruit stand over the drowning inmate they take bets on how long he will live, yet McDonagh saves him. Maverick behaviour maybe, but not bad. It is Val Kilmer’s Pruit who is happy to walk away and let the coroner deal with the body. And again, towards the end, Pruit, who with no drug addition or clear need for money, is eager to kill and steal from Big Fate. And again, McDonagh does the right thing. A bad lieutenant or drug addict who needs help?
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