The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

In a post-storm New Orleans, police detective Terence McDonagh's live isn't going so smoothly. He's in severe back pain after a random rescue attempt, he's got a drug problem that's spiraling out of control, and an unsolved murder case that's eating away at him. And that's just the tip of his problems, all of which will begin to converge on him over the next few days.

In honor of this drug-centric day, I present one of those movies that definitely had some level of narcotics involved in its production (and I don't just mean the many crack pipes and bags of coke that are tossed around onscreen). A twisted, bizarre, hallucinogenic, and completely hilarious tale of one cop who's both good and bad in a city that's everything at once.

The main draw here, as people who've heard about this flick will know, is Nicholas Cage's performance as the leading man. Put simply, he goes all out on it. He delivers a remarkably over-the-top show, showing us a detached and totally insane individual. He's got a constant hunch the entire movie which adds to his freakish persona, and his voice is fairly unlike anything I've heard Cage use before. He threatens old ladies with magnums, he double-crosses and triple-crosses everyone around him, he claws his way to the bottom of the barrel, and he's generally brilliant. It's an amazing role, one of Cage's best and one that will echo throughout the times.

The rest of the folks aren't too shabby either, especially straight-man Val Kilmer (who's better than most folks give him credit for, whatever point of his career he's at). The film itself looks fairly moody and dark, not as hazy as you'd expect a film like this to be. It's got that shoreline-after-a-heavy-rain look to it, and since that's exactly where it takes place, it works (on several levels).

I said the film was quite funny, and it is. Besides Cage's performance and the generally crazy situations, there's a bundle of little details that always earn a laugh (especially if you're watching this with a big crowd). One such detail is director Werner Herzog's obsession with getting as many reptiles into this movie as he can. Iguanas, snakes, gators... they turn up everywhere (and are heavily focused on, literally), usually in shots where they have no business showing up at all. It just adds to the craziness of things, and hey, I'm always for there being more reptiles in movies.

It's a very strange, very twisted, fairly dark, and ultimately nothing-else-like-it movie. Not something for everyone, but definitely something for folks looking for something different (or a recent good Cage performance. The man gives more than people think, but he still needs something like this every once in a while to really get him ahead).

Trailer: