Werner Herzog's 'Bad Lieutenant' remake: trailer preview

It was a surprise to discover that the German director was set to remake Abel Ferrara's seminal 'Bad Lieutenant'. The trailer makes us think that it might not have been such a great idea

Anyone who thought that Abel Ferrara’s original ‘Bad Lieutenant’ from 1992 didn’t feature nearly enough iguanas, rap stars and foot-stompin’ harmonica tunes should find that this curious re-imagining from Werner Herzog is just the ticket if the trailer is anything to go by.

The original film – a bleak, censor-baiting essay on sin and redemption – split opinion when it was released in 1992. Many were appalled by its unremitting sleaze as Harvey Keitel’s coke-snorting, spread betting, perpetually denuded New York cop debased himself in every way possible until a case involving an abused nun sets him on the path to salvation. Others saw past the squalor and found a film of genuine conviction that was acted and directed as if lives depended on it.

Many were puzzled when it was announced that Ferrara's film was to be re-worked by German iconoclast Herzog and would star Nicolas Cage. Ferrara himself went berserk and wished all sorts of vile voodoo curses on Herzog who, in turn, claimed that he’d never seen the original. The trailer for the new film, ‘Bad Lieutenant; Port of Call New Orleans’, suggests that there may be some truth to Herzog's claim. We can only hope that the burnished colours, loose-fitting beige suits and cartoon violence are being given prominence in the trailer to entice the multiplex crowd and that something darker and far more worthwhile lurks within the film.

Herzog is hardly a frivolous man, so let’s pray that the editors who cut this together were under harsh instructions to keep things light and airy. There are, however, some choice lines. And the one likely to win a place in people's hearts? ‘We don’t hit women down South!’



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