Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

In Werner Herzog’s new film BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS, Nicolas Cage plays a rogue detective who is as devoted to his job as he is at scoring drugs — while playing fast and loose with the law. He wields his badge as often as he wields his gun in order to get his way. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina he becomes a high-functioning addict who is a deeply intuitive, fearless detective reigning over the beautiful ruins of New Orleans with authority and abandon. Complicating his tumultuous life is the prostitute he loves (played by Eva Mendes). Together they descend into their own world marked by desire, compulsion, and conscience. The result is a singular masterpiece of filmmaking: equally sad and manically humorous.

The two films’ “most striking similarity is that each stars an actor whose performance is so intensely played and thoroughly inhabited, it can feel like psychosis, possession, a bit of both. They’re performances that make you wonder where the character leaves off and the man playing him has taken hold, a slippage that can lead to greatness, but also to moments of such excess and even grotesque comedy that they leave you squirming.” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times)