BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS Movie Review

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was just released to theaters this Friday November 20 2009. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans stars Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Jennifer Coolidge, Fairuza Balk, Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner and is directed by Werner Herzog. If you are planning to go see the movie, here are a few reviews from around the web to help you make up your mind.
The Washington Post
There’s a deranged grandeur to Nicolas Cage’s performance in “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” in which he plays a police officer who plunges into drug addiction after a heroic on-the-job accident. Cage throws himself into a role of a man not so much battling as fervidly dancing with his demons, allowing him to indulge in his most manic, unhinged mannerisms. Like a jumpy, coke-fueled Pied Piper, Cage takes viewers to the very precipice of depraved self-abasement, while preserving just enough self-conscious humor to keep from tumbling in. Read More
Los Angeles Times
Cold-blooded reptiles are lurking everywhere in the slick new noir “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” with snakes, iguanas, gators and especially Nicolas Cage at their slithering and cynical best. Director Werner Herzog opens the film with the snake just so we’re clear that he will be exposing the seductive and duplicitous underbelly of things from the start. It’s a beautiful shot, dark and silvery, with a water moccasin moving inland through the rising black tide of Hurricane Katrina. Read More
San Francisco Chronicle
“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” sounds as if it belongs alongside “Lost Boys: The Tribe” and “Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood” on the straight-to-video shelf.
On paper, nearly everything bodes poorly for this film, from the fact that it has nothing at all to do with Abel Ferrara’s cult classic “Bad Lieutenant” to the presence of Val Kilmer in one of the lead roles – wearing what appears to be Duran Duran lead singer Simon Le Bon’s hair from the “Hungry Like the Wolf” sessions. Read More
Screen Crave
So the deal is that Edward Pressman, producer of Abel Ferrara’s original Bad Lieutenant, owns the rights to the title and decided the time was right to reuse it with an eye to kick-starting a franchise (he is also currently planning Wall Street 2, and a reboot of The Crow.) He wanted someone unexpected to direct and eyebrows were certainly raised when news filtered out that it was to be crazy German arthouse-favourite Werner Herzog; and in star Nicolas Cage, Herzog may just have found a worthy replacement for his erstwhile muse, the late, great and certifiably insane Klaus Kinski. Read More
Read the synopsis and watch the trailer below
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans Synopsis: After severely injuring his back while saving a prisoner from drowning in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, homicide detective Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) is promoted to lieutenant, prescribed painkillers and returned to active duty. A year later, he is addicted to both Vicodin and cocaine. But his responsibilities to the force continue, and when a family of African immigrants is found massacred, Terence is handed the case by his superiors.
In the convoluted moral universe in which Terence lives, it’s possible to be a protective boyfriend to his escort girlfriend Frankie (Eva Mendes), look after a witness wanted by a notorious drug dealer (played by car-modifying rapper Xzibit), score drugs from intimidated club kids, regularly hallucinate about reptiles, have a lucky crack pipe and still somehow be charged with protecting the general public.
Watch the trailer from Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans below.