.jeri.

For me, this movie had a lot of things going against it, first and foremost the title. The title makes everyone think that director Werner Herzog is remaking the Bad Lieutenant movie that starred Harvey Keitel. It isn't a remake in any way. The two movies are very different from each other in character and theme. Honestly, I would have just given it a completely different title; and another reason for that would be the "Port of Call New Orleans" bit, which feels like it should have a dash or a colon or something between "Port of Call" and "New Orleans". And then there is Nicholas Cage. One never knows exactly which Nick Cage one is going to see on the big screen. He is often as good as the script he is given, so all I did was just hope for a good script.

The movie begins as his character and his partner encounter a man who has been left locked in a jail cell while the waters of Hurricane Katrina rise to his chest level. He jokes around for a while but then decides to help the man, and jumps from a high walkway into the waters. This triggers a back injury that plagues him through the rest of the movie and drives him into heavy drug use to dull the pain. This very beginning separates Herzog's vision from anything even close to the first movie, because it gives us a reason for Cage's bad behavior, and gives us a slight sense of empathy with him.

But, like the first movie, there is a heinous crime that the lieutenant is trying to solve. In this case, a family has been murdered, and Cage intermittently works on the case while frequenting his hooker girlfriend's place and trying to figure out he can steal drugs from the property room at work. Each time it seems like Cage has veered off from the task, he comes around again to suspects or people of interest. His drug use does make him approach everything a bit differently, though, such as when he cuts off an elderly lady's oxygen supply in an effort to obtain information from her caretaker.

As Cage's drug use gets worse and he gets more entangled into problems with the case (and some gambling problems as well), the at-first straightforward movie starts to get more and more quirky. In fact, there are some funny little scenes featuring animals, the most notable of which is a scene with some iguanas that distract Cage during a stakeout. I think I was expecting a fully dark movie, but it's got the Herzog twist, which seems to suit Cage quite well.

If one stops to examine the plot itself, it can sound a little bit crazy, but maybe it's not when it comes to a world of prostitution and drugs and territory wars. I really wouldn't know. But the crazy works. Cage only has a couple moments where his acting goes slightly overboard. There was laughter in the theater, but I think it was laughter that Herzog would have encouraged. The movie is dark but doesn't take all things seriously.

If anything bothered me, it was the deviation in tone this movie took toward its end. I think the greatness of the first Bad Lieutenant was his conversion. He confronts the victim of a crime, who surprises him with an attitude of forgiveness instead of vengeance. There's nothing quite so significant in this movie, in which the many threads all come together almost too optimistically. I was glad Cage's struggles still existed, but everything ended a little too neatly for my tastes.

Overall, though, I was surprised to find that I enjoyed this movie despite (or perhaps due to) its oddities. Herzog has a way of finding the unexpected, even in familiar territory, and I appreciated that here. I wouldn't call it perfect, but it's actually got many more layers to it than the trailer led me to believe it would have. I think I will appreciate it even more one day if I ever have a chance to catch it with the commentary.