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Home > Movies > Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

(No longer in theaters)
  • Rating: R — for drug use and language throughout, some violence and sexuality
  • Director: Werner Herzog   Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Alvin "Xzibit" Joiner, Fairuza Balk
  • Running Time: 121 minutes
  • Reader Rating: Write a Review

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Genre

Drama

Producer

Edward R. Pressman, Stephen Belafonte

Distributor

First Look Pictures

Release Date

Nov 20, 2009

Release Notes

NY/LA

Official Website

Review

If there’s a sure thing in movies, it’s that if you cast Nicolas Cage in a role in which he goes crazy, he’ll rise to the occasion and keep on rising until he seems even loonier than his character. In Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (a sequel to Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant in name only), he plays Terence McDonagh, whose back is injured as he saves a prisoner when the levees break. As he moves from prescription painkillers to huge amounts of crack and smack, his shoulders stiffen, eyes bulge, and lips pull back to reveal hungry choppers. He’s like a vampirized Richard Nixon. Werner Herzog directed, deftly at first (plenty of noir atmosphere) but with escalating wigginess, as if trying to keep up with his leading man. Talk about the burden of dreams! — David Edelstein

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