Film

Attempts to claim Bad Lieutenant as prime Herzog are probably futile, as it’s difficult to tell whether the movie intends to be taken seriously or whether it’s a mad experiment featuring Cage as its chief variable. Either way, is there anything not to like? Bearing no resemblance to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 masterpiece apart from a central character type, Bad Lieutenant: POCNO essentially takes the script for a mediocre cop drama and retrofits it with Cage’s most batshit performance yet. Scowling, hunched over from back pain, given to Tourettic pronouncements (sometimes delivered in a Cagney accent) and alarmingly nonchalant about his drug habit (“Whatever I take is prescription, except for the heroin”), Cage plays the character as a Klaus Kinski figure. He’s spent most of the decade pushing the bounds of what it means to go over the top, and this time his director—always interested in forces of nature—is eager to see how far he’ll reach. There are also other Herzog touches, including an interlude shot from an iguana’s point of view and and a fantastically abrupt denouement.

If we can take this driest of humorists seriously, the movie’s New Orleans–set crime story begs to be read as a commentary on privilege: A white cop flouts the laws he’s charged with enforcing, and society rewards him for it. (He also belongs to Herzog’s gallery of quixotic dreamers, innocently recalling a childhood treasure hunt to prostitute-girlfriend Mendes.) Still, who cares? The movie includes Cage raving about his lucky crack pipe and cutting off an old lady’s oxygen supply. If you enjoyed Cage’s histrionics in The Wicker Man, Bad Lieutenant is for you.