That title is an absolute mouthful, isn't it? I really just want to call it Bad Lieutenant, but then we would just get it confused with Abel Ferrara's 1992 film. What makes it even more fun is deciding what, if any, connection lies between the two films.
Edward R. Pressman serves as producer of both films and apparently intended this new feature to be a remake with Nicolas Cage taking over the role originally played by Harvey Keitel. Then it was set to be a similar tale in a new setting, which is what it most feels like. It has been written that Ferrara was none too pleased with the idea of a remake. In any case, the project was made with Werner Herzog at the helm and the end result is pretty wild. Granted, I have not seen the 1992 film, but I want to now.
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." John Milton — Paradise Lost
That quote opens one of the trailers for the 1992 film and seems just as appropriate for this new one. The Bad Lieutenant (as it will be called now) is a mesmerizing look inside a man trapped in a downward spiral with no hope of escape. It is a movie that has a plot but it is not what the movie is about. The plot is the thread used to give the audience some perspective, to organize the heavenly hell that Cage's lieutenant is building for himself. The story could have been anything, the point is not the investigation. Just watch Cage and the his character develops. He is the titular bad lieutenant.
The film opens in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Herzog does not take us to Bourbon Street — this is not about the pretty side of the city, it is not about flattering the city. We are given a degenerate of a man, a bad guy with a badge doing what he can for himself in a pretty bad situation.
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