Werner Herzog’s loose and loony remake of Abel Ferrara’s NC-17-rated, 1992 crime drama “Bad Lieutenant” doesn’t just star Nicolas Cage. It unleashes him in the kind of over-the-top, no-holds-barred performance that has become his hallmark.
His lieutenant, Terence McDonagh, is so bad, he constantly shoves drugs in his nose, racks up humongous gambling debts, claims a high-end prostitute as his girlfriend (Eva Mendes) and misuses the justice system to his own benefit with unabashed arrogance.
Set in a post-Katrina New Orleans, “Bad Lieutenant” depicts not just the city’s physical rot, but the moral decay in which McDonagh, his amoral partner (Val Kilmer) and underworld thugs (led by Xzibit’s drug lord) operate. (Read more…) Rated: R (drug use, language, sexual situations, violence). 121 minutes.
Opens Thursday, November 19 at the River East 21 and the Century Centre in Chicago and the CineArts 6 in Evanston.