Proof That Uncaged Nick Is The Best

BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS
(Dir: Werner Herzog, Scr: William M. Finkelstein)

Nicholas Cage may well be the most frustrating actor ever to have worked in film. The ultimate Jekyll & Hyde performer, think of his best work - Raising Arizona, Wild At Heart, Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation & Matchstick Men to name the cream of the crop - all of these are master classes on how to act on the edge of your emotions, full of wild (sometimes insane) energy and conviction in your ability to end up with something spectacular when the film wraps. For these aforementioned films Nicholas Cage is quite possibly the only actor capable of this brand of performing. However he also has a fondness for crushing the life out of those fine performances by appearing in a mix of ill judged films (8mm, The Family Man, National Treasure) or in quite a few cases pure drivel (The Wicker Man remake being Crime #1). Obviously a man still needs to earn his money but when you see him performing to such a phenomenal degree in his latest film, Bad Lieutenant, you can’t help but feel a pang of regret that he chooses to do some many films that are in all honesty beneath a man of his calibre.
The film revolves (and lives off) Cage’s turn as Lt Terence McDonagh, a cop trying to solve a grisly murder case in post Katrina New Orleans. The main obstacle in his pursuit of the bad guys is not a lack of evidence or witnesses but himself, as he has descended into a grim world of multiple drug addiction, gambling and general all round badness. He uses bribery to get sex, steals drugs meant as evidence and, in quite possibly the acting scene of the year, threatens two elderly patients at gunpoint to find out where a key witness is. It is a decadent whirlwind that has little moral fibre to it but it is blisteringly fast paced and ridiculously entertaining. Veteran German Director Werner Herzog gets something out of Cage that has not been seen since Wild At Heart. You can see he feels comfortable enough with Herzog to go completely off the leash and deliver a truly ingenious performance that will go down as his career best, and is helped by Herzog’s brilliantly constructed direction. Herzog has an eye for the intense, but he also knows how to throw in something completely absurd and make it work well within the narrative of the film, which is why we end up seeing Soul’s Dancing, Iguanas singing and a POV from an Alligator.
The film has some fine supporting turns, including Eva Mendes showing a real appetite for the dark side again (stay away from chick-flicks) but it is easily the Nick Cage show. From his hunchbacked gait to his ability to be such an inherently immoral character whilst still maintaining the semblance of a human he has reached a level that may well be set as a future benchmark in acting. When you see the final scenes you will feel deeply for McDonagh. The movie is very good, Cage is at his blistering best. Just try your best to ignore The Sorceror's Apprentice when it comes out.

Film: 4/5
Cage: 5/5

Best Scene: Has to be the second trip to the Nursing Home ("Nobody saw me come in").
Spellbinding.