Werner Herzog • USA 2009 • 2h2m • Digital • English and Spanish
with English subtitles • 18 • Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Alvin ‘Xzibit’ Joiner, Fairuza Balk.
When it was announced that Werner Herzog would be ‘re-imagining’ Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, it’s fair to say that eyebrows, not to mention a few hackles, were raised. Yet Herzog is right to insist this is not a remake, and moving the action from New York to New Orleans is indicative of how far apart the films are from each other.
Nicolas Cage is on electrifying form as Terence McDonagh, one of the few cops left in town after a post-Katrina exodus. Crippled by a back injury, prescription drugs do little to ease his pain, so he turns to the hard stuff. When McDonagh is put in charge of the investigation into the brutal murder of a family, his moral compass gets lost and his behaviour becomes ever more erratic. Is he out of his depth or out of his mind?
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