It’s interesting and more than a bit telling that the first paragraph of the accompanying press notes for Bad
Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans tout the fact that the movie “allows… for Nicolas Cage‘s performance to be truly memorable.” It’s an intriguing choice of words, one that seemingly yields, with a smirk and knowing nod, to interpretations of the film as a piece of zonked-out performance art.

Cage plays Terence McDonagh, a rogue New Orleans detective who’s as devoted to his job as he is at
scoring illicit drugs. A brief opening bit showcases McDonagh as a crusading good-guy cop. But in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and a back injury suffered during a rescue mission, he becomes a high-functioning addict who
swings from prescription meds to harder drugs. Playing fast and loose with the law, McDonagh wields both his badge as often as his gun in order to get his way, using his finely honed intuitiveness to suss out scenarios in which he can pinch both weekend partiers and low-level junkies alike. Further complicating McDonagh’s
tumultuous life are his prostitute girlfriend, Frankie (Eva
Mendes), a troublesome gambling habit, and a father in recovery with a new, alcoholic wife. When crime boss Big Fate (rapper-actor Xzibit) looks like he’s going to weasel off the hook in the brutal murder of an immigrant family, McDonagh at first tries to flip members of his crew, then seemingly throws caution to the wind and switches sides, aligning himself with Big Fate in order to pay down debts and secure personal safety.

Yes, Bad
Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is of a certain subgenre which might affectionately be called “batshit crazy cinema.” It’s a cop procedural in the very broadest sense, but instead of the typical 90-10-percent plot/color breakdown, it trends almost exactly in the opposite direction; even its very title seems flippant, a thumb in the eye of character-study convention. Cage’s devilish partner in this cinematic high-wire act, director Werner Herzog, studs his film with recognizable supporting players — Val Kilmer as Cage’s partner, Shawn Hatosy as a fellow cop, Brad Dourif as his bookie, Fairuza Balk as a state trooper fling, Jennifer Coolidge as his father’s drunken new squeeze, and Michael Shannon as an evidence room gatekeeper — but the narrative trappings of William Finkelstein’s script seems of little consequence to both parties.

In a way, this feeds the movie’s casual… well, brilliance may be too hefty a term, but effective misdirection, let’s say. Herzog truly cares not what the audience feels about McDonagh’s amorality, as evidenced by the relative lack of a superseding authority in the movie. There are a few mild professional consequences for McDonagh, but most of the tightening noose around his neck is entirely of his own creation. So in some not insignificant ways, audience identification with him starts to flicker, or wane. And yet this tack somewhat surprisingly works, both on a base entertainment level (as when McDonagh whips out his lucky crack pipe, or instructs a gangbanger to fire again into a bullet-riddled corpse, “because his soul is still dancing”) and as laid track toward a surprisingly definitive end point. Port of Call New Orleans, which has nothing to do with Abel Ferrera and Harvey Keitel’s Bad Lieutenant, save the shared moniker and bad behavior, is a woozy, rope-a-dope character study. It’s not for all tastes, certainly, but it’s further proof that square-jawed altruism can flow from complicated and often contrasting motivations.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio tracks, as well as optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, the former of which are actually a bit spotty in their translation. Bonus features consist of both regular and red-band versions of the movie’s trailer, five other DVD previews, and a gallery of 96 set photographs taken by Lena Herzog, the filmmaker’s (third) wife. The chief supplemental extra, however, is a 31-minute making-of featurette, in which Herzog explains why he likes to operate his own sound-sync clapper, and engages in an apparent ritual in which a gaffer marks him with yellow tape on the first day of shooting. While there are good anecdotal details and tidbits scattered throughout — including on the dead alligator used as roadkill in a sequence, and how 2,400 jars of decaffeinated coffee were utilized to simulate muddy water for the flooded prison scene that opens the film, after it was determined that the caffeine of regular coffee would be too readily absorbed through the skin — thankfully Herzog is all over this material, in all his bountiful weirdness. That means plenty of his impish expounding on moviemaking in general as well as the “bliss of evil” present in this film, and how he doesn’t really care about McDonagh’s behavior, since it solves cases. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B+ (Disc)