Directed by: Werner Herzog
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes
Rating: R

Nicholas Cage stars in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.(Courtesy photo)

Here’s a rare twist: take a terrible movie with a powerful central performance and a great title and rethink it into an exceptional movie with an uneven central performance and a poor title.

The original Bad Lieutenant was a 1992 film by master of the vile and humorless, Abel Ferrara. Yet Harvey Keitel’s work in the title role was raw and powerful enough to turn Ferrara’s missed opportunity into a minor cult success. What compelled a director the magnitude of Werner Herzog to take on such a remake? Apparently the new screenplay by veteran TV writer William Finkelstein; Herzog claims never to have seen the original film.

Herzog and Finkelstein have taken the premise of a self-destructive, drug- and gambling-addicted cop and fashioned a far more interesting tale than the original. With a switch from New York to New Orleans, and an almost completely new storyline, the film bears only the slightest resemblance to its predecessor. The move also leads to the ridiculous new name: The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. It sounds more like a video game sequel than the twisty, sweaty, compelling movie it is.

Nicholas Cage is Lieutenant Terence McDonagh, top detective on the New Orleans police force. Thanks to constant back pain, Terence is addicted to his medication—along with cocaine, heroin, and any other drugs he can get his hands on. And as a high-ranking police officer, he can get his hands on them in all sorts of ways. The pain has turned Terence from a cold-hearted law enforcer into a borderline lunatic, yet somehow he manages to keep up appearances just enough. It helps that his partner, Stevie (Val Kilmer), is nearly as troubled as he is, and that his girlfriend, Frankie (Eva Mendes), is an almost equally addicted prostitute. Terence is assigned to solve a multiple homicide, and all signs lead to local drug kingpin Big Fate (Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner). As the noose of his many indiscretions tightens, Terence goes after Big Fate with reckless intensity.

Shot in post-Katrina New Orleans, The Bad Lieutenant takes place in a city that isn’t so much in ruins as it is between lives. Longtime Herzog collaborator Peter Zeitlinger gives the film a ghostly look that enhances the feeling of limbo. Yet somehow it isn’t as dark as it sounds. Herzog keeps finding ways to tell us we can watch the carnage from a safe distance, that we’re better off not investing in this guy. Terence’s downward spiral is often as amusing as it is repellent. The movie starts to lose its momentum around the mid-point, as is often the case when your main character cracks. By the end, the scene choices, while interesting, feel random. I suspect Herzog shot enough footage to put together a number of very different versions of this story, and I’m not convinced the one he chose is the most effective.

Just when it seems Nicholas Cage has forever lost the magic of his early performances, he manages a turn like Terence McDonagh. Terence is a beautifully written psychopath, and Cage nails him with attention to detail long absent from his work. Only when Terence himself goes off the deep end does Cage fall into that familiar skin-deep behavior. Overall, it’s a big step in the right direction. However, it wasn’t the smartest move to pair him with Kilmer. Kilmer approaches his work like a rich eight-course meal: he works at a very deliberate pace and savors every moment. When the two are together on screen, Cage risks disappearing into the background. It seems Kilmer’s role may have shrunk in the final edit; Stevie starts and finishes the movie as a key figure, but disappears for most of the middle. Mendes (Ghost Rider, Hitch) is gradually turning from a very appealing screen personality into a real actor. She’s solid—even great at times—as the absurdly patient and loving Frankie. There are no weak links in the supporting cast, but comic scene-stealer Jennifer Coolidge (Legally Blond) deserves special mention playing against type as the boozy second wife of Terence’s father.

Back to that title. Herzog fought against it and rightfully so. The movie struggled to find a distributor, even with Cage and Mendes involved. Now it’s struggling to find an audience, which is too bad. Maybe it’s the haunting Louisiana scenery or the wonderfully offbeat characters penned by Finkelstein. Maybe it’s the brief, bizarro “lizard cam” Herzog incorporates into the story. For plenty of reasons besides being a truly great film, The Bad Lieutenant sticks with you. Those who like their crime dramas gritty and grim-yet-strangely-ebullient should definitely take a look at The Bad Lieutenant.

Alex Manugian lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He grew up in Groton and has reviewed movies for Harvard readers for many years.