THE BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL - NEW ORLEANS (2009) - ♦♦♦♦

Directed by - Werner Herzog

Written by - William M. Finkelstein (based on the screenplay of Bad Lieutenant by Victor Argo, Paul Calderon, Abel Ferrara, Zoe Lund)

Starring - Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes

"A detective severely addicted to drugs and gambling and countless other vices, such as corruption and prostitution, investigates on the murder of five Senegalese immigrants in a post hurricane Katrina New Orleans. 

Werner Herzog's film is based on the previous film by Abel Ferrara, which represented an excellent and truly worrying character driven portrayal of corruption and social decadence. Nevertheless The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans is very different in style and approach despite dealing with a similar character and the character sharing most of the very same goals. 

Here, the German filmmaker is much freer to mix drastically surrealist sequences with a more haunting social and political backdrop, provided by the very setting of the film, which as the title suggests was a New Orleans still showing the scars of the awful disaster that was inflicted upon it by hurricane Katrina. 

Nicolas Cage's performance is also quite different from Keitel's in Ferrara's film, more openly flamboyant and providing a different type of intensity. 

And much like Ferrara's film, Herzog is less intent in following the narrative suggested by its premise and much more interested in drawing us into the world of the titular bad lieutenant and get a first hand glance inside his world and his degrading mindset."

Thriller, USA