Bad, and all the better
Last night I saw “The Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call: New Orleans.” It was enormous great fun. In fact, leaving the theatre, I couldn’t remember the last time I had such a howling good time at the movies.
I wasn’t alone in this. Sometimes you’re fortunate to see a movie or play or concert with the right audience, an audience that absorbs the moment and bounces it back in the playing area, creating a feedback loop that heightens the experience. Although the screen and the theatre at the Beverly Center are small — not much larger than many living rooms, and smaller than most in Bel Air — that smaller venue probably benefited the screening. It was like a dozen Werner Herzog fans got together for a movie night. This audience laughed along with every bit of trademark Herzog weirdness and made it a better experience than it would have been watching the film alone at home.
And the movie is weird. Delightfully so. Closeup shots of iguanas are run against contextually mismatching blues music. A dead spirit breakdances. The bad lieutenant menaces uncooperative old ladies, molests spoiled young people on dates, and snorts every volatile substance in sight. Nicolas Cage’s energetic performance is literally twisted, as uses his character’s recent back injury as an excuse to hunch around the entire film like a scarecrow stuck crooked on his post. This is the most fun Nicolas Cage has had in a movie since his foray with the Coen brothers 20 years ago, and it reminds us of how much presence and promise he once had. The movie is filled with charms: great character parts for Brad Dourif and Jennifer Coolidge and Fairuza Balk; a completely iconoclastic way to use music that would be wrong in most cases but which utterly supports and lifts every scene; and a thrilling nervy looseness that lends the entire film a sense of excitement that leaves us wondering what could possibly be next?
This movie calls to mind what great B movies used to be: Fun; weird; unexpected. I didn’t realize I was missing that sensation until I came across it again. And here it was.