Werner Herzog in spirit sequel to the 1992 film Bad Lieutenant is a trippy, darkly humorous, detective story with Nicholas Cage’s Terrance taking us on a wild ride into depravity that we can’t really predict.
During the mayhem of hurricane Katrina Terrance and his partner watch a prisoner trapped in a cell as the water is slowly rising around him, Terrance decides to jump in and let him out only to hurt his back and when we pick up again a few months later, the man has grown addicted to pain pills and seems to have much more of a problem beyond that. Upon investigating a homicide in which an entire family is murdered over a drug turf dispute, Terrance becomes involved in a case that deals with a top drug lord, Big Fate, and between his desire to close the case and battling his own demons Terrance ends up having to juggle a lot of risks to try and come out clean with Big Fate in jail on the other side.
Now, Werner Herzog isn’t afraid to take us anywhere, we get involved with gangsters, bookies, gambling debts, drug dealers, throwing games, police brutality, witness murders, dirty cops, cocaine, heroin, and just about any drug you can imagine you are going to touch it all. And with that in mind, it gives the film a feeling of uncertainty in what is going to happen next and it is almost kind of fun/scary to watch where Terrance will end up next. [Read more...]