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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
2009 122 min United States of America, Germany R 18+
★6.9
Drama, Crime
Director: Werner Herzog
Trailers
Description
Terrence McDonagh is a New Orleans Police sergeant, who receives a medal and a promotion to lieutenant for heroism during Hurricane Katrina. Due to his heroic act, McDonagh injures his back and becomes addicted to prescription pain medication. He then finds himself involved with a drug dealer who is suspected of murdering a family of African immigrants.
Budget:
$25M
US Gross:
$1.7M
Worldwide:
$10.59M
Starring
Nicolas Cage
Actor
Eva Mendes
Actor
Val Kilmer
Actor
Awards
Venice Film Festival 2009
— Christopher D. Smithers Special Award
Venice Film Festival 2009
— Golden Lion
Key opinion
Werner Herzog’s reimagining of the franchise is widely considered a unique, surrealist departure from the original rather than a traditional remake. While opinions on the film's pacing and narrative clarity are divided, there is strong consensus regarding Nicolas Cage’s career-best performance as a drug-addicted, tormented police detective.
| Acting | Nicolas Cage delivers a definitive, high-intensity performance that anchors the film and serves as a career-best effort. | |
| Direction | Herzog transforms a standard crime procedural into a surreal, idiosyncratic work filled with dreamlike motifs and absurd imagery. | |
| Pacing | The film’s tone and aesthetic choices spark disagreement: some viewers find the slow, hallucinogenic tempo hypnotic and meaningful, while others perceive it as boring, sluggish, or lacking in coherent narrative drive. | |
| Screenplay | Critics are split on the script's quality, with some praising its thematic ambiguity and bold refusal of convention, while others criticize it as incomplete, hollow, or lacking modern sensibility. |