#65 The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

#65 Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call- New Orleans

Year: 2009

Director: Werner Herzog

MPAA Rating: R

Epic Co-stars: Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes

Running Time: 122 mins
Cage Time: 
Cage Kills: 
Cage Flip-outs: 4

Shauna's Review: 

This movie is set in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina (text says). Cage and Kilmer are cops. Early in the film (I'm guessing this is immediately post-Katrina) Cage jumps into a submerged prison to save a trapped convict and injures his back-- mild to moderate pain for the rest of his life, the doctor says, and prescribes him Vicodin. Flash forward to six months later, Cage is snorting something in his police car before walking into a crime scene. He's a grumpy-ass, high strung lieutenant with a crazy-ass swagger and a gun perpetually stuck in the front of his pants. His girlfriend, Eva Mendes, appears to be a hooker. Oh, yep. She's a hooker.

Look, honey, there's a surprisingly bright future ahead of us! 

Cage's boss assigns him lead for the investigation into the murder of a Senegalese family. Turns out Cage has been stealing drugs from the property room with some help from a beat walker, Michael Shannon (aka Dave from Cage classic World Trade Center, if you're attentive). He also pulls over a couple of teenagers, ostensibly on suspicion of "passing drugs," and takes some drugs from the guy, takes some secondhand hits from a crack pipe via the mouth of the hot teenage girl, followed by a handjob.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Also cocaine makes you crazy in the brain. 

We're alternately impressed with the intensity of his drug use, the depth of his depravity, and his skill in conducting the murder investigation. Cage single-handedly finds and delivers most of the important people and clues, despite the fact that he is pretty much up to his eyeballs in drugs and gambling debt.  This movie might be more accurately titled "Irresponsible Lieutenant"-- given charge of his father's dog, he does everything in his power to pass that responsibility off onto his girlfriend; given charge of the young witness to the homicide, he quickly a) snorts coke in front of him, b) gives drugs to his hooker girlfriend, and c) loses the kid in a casino. Things start to unravel pretty quickly after that.

"What are those fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?"

Cage is a fine actor here. He truly embodies this desperate, strung-out character with a touch of Cage-esque humor, a shuffling, hunched back posture and a nasally, mumbling version of his familiar drawl. Somehow you manage to feel bad for this poor son of a bitch, despite his fucking miserable life choices. The direction of the film is a bit rambly and has less momentum than I would like for this type of story. The director wastes a few minutes here and there with random artsy film bits (close-ups of a lizard or a crocodile dying on the street). But overall I would say this is a decent movie, and undoubtedly one of Cage's better recent acting gigs.

Movie quotability:

• "Please what, shitbird?"
• 'Hey, man, i got on Swiss cotton underpants. yeah, that's right. cost me $55 a pair. You think I want to get all this brown water and shit all over them?"
• "Don't move, you stay and watch! You watch her! You watch your fucking girlfriend!"
• "I need that coke back... I snorted what I thought was coke, turned out to be heroin. I need to be at work in an hour."
• "What are these fucking iguanas doing on my coffee table?"
• "It's amazing how much you can get done when you have a simple purpose in life."
• "Shoot him again!" "What for?" "His soul's still dancing!"
• "You don't have a lucky crack pipe?"
• "I'll kill all of you. To the break of dawn. To the break of dawn, baby."
• "Hey, did I ever tell you about the ni**er elk?"
• (to two elderly ladies) "Maybe you should die, you selfish cunt.... You fucks, I hate you, I hate you both.... You're the fucking reason this country's going down the drain."
• "Well, let her get cleaned up, put on something hot. She looks like shit right now."
• "A man without a gun isn't a man."

Plot Holes:

• All the other cops conveniently leave Cage in the room alone with bad guys often enough that he can smoke crack and make deals with them on a regular basis.

	CAGEamatic	Cinematic
Skyler	Outstanding	Outstanding
Shauna
James	4.38/5.00	4.04/5.00
Martine	!Enjoyed the Cage!

#23 Kiss of Death

#23 Kiss of Death

Year: 1995

Director: Barbet Schroeder

MPAA Rating:

Epic Co-stars: David Caruso, Samuel L Jackson, Helen Hunt, John Costelloe, Stanley Tucci, Ving Rhames, Philip Baker Hall

Running Time: 101 mins
Cage Time: ~25%
Cage Kills: 1
Cage Flip-outs: 4

James's Review: After watching Kiss of Death can I say that I'm surprised that I'd never heard of this movie before despite it's start studded cast?  No, I cannot.  What I can say is that the start studded cast does almost nothing to improve it's cinematic quality and that the story is basically total garbage.  Now that I have the truth out of the way I can get to the good stuff:  despite this movie being basically unforgettable on most fronts, it should still be considered Classic Cage based on his ridiculous performance playing a completely ridiculous character.

Nic Cage plays "Little" Junior Brown, a ruthless gangster who (according to the movie tagline) "rules the streets" and "owns his game", but unfortunately for him "doesn't own all of the players".  Jimmy Kilmartin (David Caruso) plays an ex-con trying to get his life back together and clean up his act.  He got a cute wife (Helen Hunt) and things seem to be going well until his inner moron comes screaming back to the surface and he gets sucked into little Junior's ring of crime.  Fast forward: Kilmartin wants his life back, cops get involved, "juicy" story unfolds.  

This pretty much sums things up - Kicking ass.  Taking names.  Short hair.  White Jumpsuit.

As I've said in previous reviews, for a Cage fan none of this really matters.  What does matter is that Cage plays is a psychotic career criminal with a strip-club whos hideout is a stripclub (i.e. plenty of nudity: all boobs no bush and it also seems the director had some trouble making David Caruso keep his shirt on).  He stays in shape by bench-pressing strippers, wears a terrible white outfit at all times, and hates the taste of metal in his mouth.  None of this really makes sense either in the real world or in the context of this movie, but that is generally what we're looking for with these types of films.  

The all powerful master of his ultra bad-ass strip club lair.

Although with Kiss of Death viewers are not in for wholistic cinematic quality, those who stick with it through for the long haul are in for a few treats.  Cage breaks all of the rules by having what sounds like a Boston accent despite his character being from Queens NY.  His hair is like we've never seen it; tight on the sides with a surprisingly small amount of fluff or bounce up top.  He pushes the bounds of human behavior by  performing some sort of strange cry-rage exercise dance that is both fascinating and extremely pleasing to the viewer.  Also, there are a couple of deaths (including Helen Hunt) that are pretty awesome...

Bottom line:  Watch for a great Cage performance and a few good deaths / special treats (see below), but not much else.

Only Nicolas Cage, nobody else.

Movie quotability:

• "Now!  Fucko!"
• "I have an acronym for myself. Know what it is? B.A.D. B.A.D... Balls, Attitude, Direction. You should give yourself an acronym... 'cause it helps you visualize your goals."
• "You know what I hate? I hate the taste of metal in my mouth.  Thanks why I never use silverware, forks and knives."

Plot Holes:

• Jimmy Kilmartin is the only guy who can drive a truck.
• Chopping a Rolls Royce is worth more than just selling it straight up.
• "Good family people" leave toddler unattended in a kiddie pool.
• David Caruso can handle himself on a prison basketball court filled with 6'4" 250lb black guys.
• David Caruso appears partially nude in half of his scenes.
• Good guys get to keep stolen cars.

	CAGEamatic	Cinamatic
Skyler	Exceeds Expectations	Poor
Shauna
James	3.34/5	2.04/5
Martine	!Stayed in the Cage!