Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Nicolas Cage - acting like a dickhead.

First off, what the fuck is with this title? Have you ever seen a movie title with more punctuation? This shit required the shift and alt keys just to type. The only movie I was able to find with a more obnoxious title was “The Fearless Vampire Killers, Or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck”, but that was a Roman Polanski film, so what did you really expect... except maybe some kids tied to the radiator in his basement. God you people make me sick, especially you Polanski you filthy Pole. I mean the paedophilia I can forgive, but this movie’s title? No, you deserve the chair for that one.

Back to the point.

This movie’s shit-itude doesn’t just stop with the title, oh no; it’s riddled with tumours of failure and terribleness like a citizen of Pripyat circa 1986.

Here is a shortlist of problems I have compiled for your ease:
1. Nicolas Cage is in it.
2. Nicolas Cage’s wig looks like he stapled a few merkins to his head.
3. Nicolas Cage doesn’t have any sideburns.
4. Random, unexplained cutaways – shot with a crappy handheld camera – that seem to always be about reptiles. Why reptiles? Is it some clever hint towards a greater plot point I hear you say... No. They are just lizards.
5. Val Kilmer is fat.
6. Xzibit is in it. (‘X gonna give it to ya’ eh? Well the only thing he gave me was the dire need to shit, and shit violently.)
7. Bad writing. The script for this movie was probably originally written in crayon... on coloured paper.
8. There is some guy who says ‘Oh Yeah!’ like a billion times. Even when it isn’t appropriate.

What the fuck is with those cutaways. Was it meant to be artsy? Why is there a dead alligator on the road and then a live alligator just a bit off the road? Why is he constantly seeing iguanas? Fuck this movie, and fuck Nicolas Cage.

These are just some of the problems one encounters when watching this ‘farthouse’ movie. It’s also a very hard movie to label. It was too stupid to be drama, and to serious to be comedy. There are some bits which are amusing, but these are few and far between, and only really when Nicolas Cage does a heap of crack. During the course of the film he does an incredible amount of coke, heroin, crack, weed and other such substances. He yells at old people, cuts off a paralysed woman’s oxygen supply, buys, sells and deals drugs, pimps a whore, blackmails an athlete and – the most awful crime of them all – saves a Mexican man from drowning, all while hobbling around like a fucking cripple.

The plot is dragging, and seems to be forgotten after about 15 minutes only to pop up again at the very end like a dead child bobbing lifelessly in a pool. You could go and do something more important in the middle – like eat an endangered species – and still not miss a beat. It is set in New Orleans post Hurricane Katrina, and you can really see what a shithole it is. No wonder God saw fit to lay waste to that cesspit. There isn’t really a lot of racism in the film for such a setting. Although the black people are pretty racist, calling Cage a ‘Caucasian’ at one point. Lo! The nerve of those animals!

I don't know if this was a remake/sequel to 1992’s Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel, but if it is it fails in all respects to be anywhere near as good. Cage just can’t hold a candle to Keitel. He’s just so raw and masculine, like Charles Bronson but with less moustache.

I honestly recommend you avoid this film like you would West Africa. Though if you’re a masochist, then yeah, it’s probably your thing. I’d personally rather sit through root canal surgery while being force fed snakes, rectally. But if you absolutely feel the need to watch every single Nicolas Cage movie ever then go for it. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. This movie is dicks.