All Critics (138)
|
Top Critics (34)
|
Fresh (123)
|
Rotten (17)
|
DVD (8)
Is redemption possible for this bad lieutenant? At one point, he orders that a dead man be shot again because "his soul is still dancing." If you find God in that line, then welcome to your movie heaven.
Cage, who usually goes gonzo with gusto, underplays this monster. That spoils the fun.
Nicolas Cage is out of his mind in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call -- New Orleans. And it's wonderful to see.
Nicolas Cage is so gleefully over-the-top as the troubled cop of the title that you will either be repulsed or fascinated by his performance and, since it lives or dies by it, the movie itself.
Frankly, the story isn't remotely as interesting as Cage. Nothing is.
A one-of-a-kind experience that boasts a twice-in-a-lifetime performance from Nicolas Cage.
If Herzog had chosen realism over surrealism, this film would have been predictable and unentertaining. As it is, I found it oddly captivating. This is one weird movie.
[Cage is] hilarious, scary, contorted, mournful, mean and weirdly, monstrously lovable -- the perfect actor to work with one of the world's most stubborn, bold, idiosyncratic filmmakers.
Nicolas Cage's deliriously unhinged portrayal of the film's titular bent cop ranks right up there with his most memorably off-kilter performances.
Despite the snake slither-swimming through the bars of a flooded cellblock, the injured alligator and the iguanas that seem to be crooning Johnny Adams' 'Release Me,' star Nicolas Cage may be the most reptilian presence here...
Perhaps it took a director as crazy as Werner Herzog to control (and ultimately unleash) the madness that exists within Cage ... they craft a character not unlike a modern day Daniel Plainview.
Any reservations that this is a straight forward remake of Abel Ferrara's hardcore Catholic redemption drama should be left on the wayside, for this Bad Lieutenant is a different monster all together.
Cage's Lieutenant McDonagh is a parody of not just the actor's own performances in recent years, but a gaudy exaggeration of every bad-cop cliché out there.
This will be remembered as one of Cage's finest performances. Maybe he has just needed the right director and in eccentric German genius Werner Herzog he's found him.
I'd rather rot in a New Orleans jail than watch it again. And yet its epiphanies are outrageously sharp, it is beautifully shot by cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger and the ending is a joy.
More Critic Reviews
Top Critic
