Val Kilmer and Nicolas Cage in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
At a time when studio-backed movies are often seen as being the preserve of “safe” and commercially viable stories, 2009’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans seems like a true rarity. Directed by maverick filmmaker Werner Herzog, Nicolas Cage stars as Terence McDonagh, a New Orleans police lieutenant whose heroic rescue during Hurricane Katrina leaves him addicted to painkillers and narcotics, often bending the law to feed his habit.
His co-star is Val Kilmer, playing his partner Stevie Pruit. It’s a relatively small role for the late actor compared to his more illustrious films, but it allowed the meeting of two unique minds, overseen by a filmmaker who is more than happy to follow them into new and strange places. Cage and Kilmer Portray Two Different Styles of Chaos Nicolas Cage is known for off-the-wall performances and methods of acting. From the psychedelia of films like Mandy or Color Out of Space, to hyperactive performances in big-budget movies like Face/Off or The Wicker Man, the Oscar winner has never been afraid to let loose on screen. As McDonagh, however, there is something sinister to the way his character’s addiction leads him to delirious behavior. Our first meeting with him, before his substance abuse, establishes him as a morally gray character who ultimately does the right thing. Both he and Pruit observe a prisoner in a New Orleans jail who is at risk of drowning in his flooded cell, openly mocking him before McDonagh eventually rescues him, leading to an injury and promotion. Related The 50 Best Thriller Movies of All Time, Ranked According to IMDb The cream of the thriller crop. Posts 4 By Hannah Saab However, with his addiction blurring his morals further, there’s no limit to what he is capable of. He almost embraces becoming embroiled with a drug dealer named Big Fate , and no matter how deep the rabbit hole goes, McDonagh meets it with wide-eyed enthusiasm. After a particularly violent shootout, he looks at the dead bodies and instructs one of Big Fate’s men to “shoot him again.” When asked why, he remarks, “his soul is still dancing” before bursting into laughter as he hallucinates a recently deceased mobster breakdancing on the floor. It's unhinged moments like this that make Cage and Herzog such a good cinematic pairing, with the star fully prepared to follow the filmmaker into a world of crumbling realities and shattered morals. Val Kilmer Plays a Small But Unusually Dark Role Maybe more surprising to see next to Cage is Kilmer, at least to those familiar with his more mainstream work. Shooting to fame as the star of movies such as Top Gun, Batman Forever, and Heat, the actor was an A-lister who always retained his passion for the craft, which was reflected in occasionally left-field choices.One of those was Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, playing a man corroded by the corruption he has made himself a part of. It’s a small role for an actor of his stature, appearing in only a few scenes, but Kilmer would later say he agreed to the part simply to work with an iconoclast such as Herzog. It gave him a chance to portray the dark side of the police force, or at least where Pruit has descended to. In one scene, he is shown interrogating a relatively minor suspect with violence, threatening that he can “do whatever I want in this room” and that he is operating under “Guantánamo Bay rules." It’s a brief but disturbing moment, particularly when McDonagh pulls him out of the interrogation and chastises him. He is completely confused by the criticism, although he appears completely lucid, illustrating just how numb he has become to bending the rules. Werner Herzog Was the Perfect Orchestrator of Anarchy While he would make unexpected appearances as an actor in films like Jack Reacher and shows such as The Mandalorian, this is the closest to a franchise Herzog gets as a director. The movie is a spiritual successor to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 drama Bad Lieutenant, which starred Harvey Keitel as a police officer with similar issues, although it was set in New York. It makes sense, then, that the director would make this studio-backed movie his own way, going in completely unexpected directions while facilitating these extreme performances from his stars. He completely rejects the realism associated with cop thrillers, instead injecting bizarre moments such as slow-motion shots of iguanas on coffee tables. He turns a crime movie into a fever dream and has the ideal onscreen accomplice. While promoting the film in 2009, Cage said, “I think Werner and I had a perfect marriage,” adding: “He has confidence in what I'm going to do and I have confidence in what he's going to do, that he'll get it.” Years later, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans endures with fans because it channels two fearless performers through a director who thrives on disorder. Cage and Kilmer push their characters to extremes, and Herzog shapes that chaos into something hypnotic rather than haphazard. The result is something that feels impossible to categorize, even after repeated viewings.Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans is available to stream on Prime Video and Tubi in the U.S. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans Like R Drama Crime Release Date November 20, 2009 Runtime 122 minutes Director Werner Herzog Cast See All Writers William M. Finkelstein Producers Alessandro Camon, Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson, Danny Dimbort, Edward R. Pressman, Elliot Lewis Rosenblatt, John Thompson, Randall Emmett, Trevor Short, Stephen Belafonte, Alan Polsky Powered by Expand Collapse
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