ViewGuide

Created Nov 22, 2009 01:29AM PST • Edited Apr 13, 2020 04:09PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   It’s a good thing that bad blood and a bad title don’t trump brilliant execution of a great set-up, because otherwise Bad Lt. NOLA wouldn’t be such a wildly entertaining time at the movies. But it is. Oh man is it ever. Dark comedy gets no more grim, nor rarely as LOL funny as here. Think of this intense genre picture as Drugstore Cowboy with a badge – informed by a demented Dirty Harry ethos. Feeling lucky? Oh yeah.

   Legendary director Werner Herzog uses Nic Cage’s trademark brittle edginess to great effect as an obsessively self-medicating detective. Rarely do superstars find vehicles this in tune with their acting peccadilloes, complete with a wild-man director and off-the-hook script. Cage does here and the result is one of the best and most enjoyable performances of his long career.

   About the bad blood: Nominally a remake of 1992’s Bad Lieutenant starring Harvey Keitel, this unauthorized edition has provoked outrage from Abel Ferrara, director of the original.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Classic Cage: unhinged yet successfully lurching from one confrontation to another. Playing a man literally twisted with pain, his frame angled from injury, he’s like Peter Lorre dragging around a bunch of bad habits. His performance combines brilliant physical acting with more scenes of drug usage than a DEA orientation film. You name it, he’s using: Crime scene, he drives his car over a curb and onto a lawn, shakes out a coke bump, then exits the vehicle and performs brilliantly; at other times it’s heroin, once even mistakenly switching the two. Not to mention the vicodin and other script drugs. Just acting? One wonders how he did his “research?” Oh, and his bad habits include bookie bets, football in particular.

   Eva Mendes’ gorgeous features are pronounced – meaty lips, crescent jaw, sculpted chin, big eyes, aquiline nose – but she doesn’t come across as an all-time great beauty. Perhaps playing the oldest part in the book – sweetheart hooker – hurts her cause. She is sweet and she is fine and she doesn’t fuck things up, so bully for her. (As they might say in the movie.)

   Val Kilmer easily inhabits the tough but none-too-bright detective partner. It’s nice to see this former leading man – always interesting on-screen – keeping busy with supporting roles.

   Xzibit – the rapper – proves his budding acting career is no fluke, here playing a charismatic drug kingpin.

   Vondie Curtis-Hall effectively essays the cliche of a harried and harrying Detective boss, as would be expected from such an accomplished actor.

   And who is the uncredited actress cameoing as the first hot date to get rousted? By turns tipsy, angry, indignant, tempted, enabling and then wildly aroused, she demonstrates the full panoply of movie emotions in one short scene. Wow. Get this gorgeous girl a leading role soon! Could she be Katie Chonacas?

   Lastly, Bad Lt. NOLA scores a first by employing reptiles deserving of cast credit. Two gators appear midway, one near dead (robotic we hope), the other apparently living in grief. Then a couple of iguanas get close-ups Norma Desmond would treasure. Oh, and a water moccasin sluices through rising water in the opening scene. From reptilian menace to anthropomorphic projection of reptilian behavior, Herzog gets more acting out of these cold blooded creatures than most directors get out of hot blooded starlets.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

   Classic Cage

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Really Great 4.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Brilliantly surreal and downright hilarious time-and-again, Herzog’s film makes scintillating use of breakdancing spirits and reptilian actors (of the human and reptile varieties). These bolts of genius elevate this from merely well done genre piece to inspired filmmaking.

    Is it a rip-off of the original Bad Lt.? Who gives a shit.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

    Opens with slithering menace and never lets up. Kick ass Werner. Kick ass.

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5

    The reptilian scenes were groundbreaking from both storytelling and technical points of view.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Horrid 3.7

    Shield the ladies and children from this abomination. Bad Lt. NOLA ain’t called Bad for no reason.

17. Sex Lewd 3.6

18. Violence Brutal 3.1

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.5

21. Reality

    Glib 1.9

    Can anyone ingest this much poison and still perform a physically demanding and high stress job? No.

    It’s only a movie. I estimate the fakery to be 3X human bioreality. For goodness sakes (literally), don’t try this at home.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.6

23. Biological Surreal 3.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0