Nicolas Cage Tackles Surprising Role in Werner Herzog's 'Bad Lieutenant'

It's kind of incredible that anyone thought "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" would make money. Nicolas Cage playing the lead role in a formulaic bad-cop movie might itself bring about modest box office success. But considering that the man at the directorial helm here is the iconoclastic German art-house director Werner Herzog, things have the potential to get weird. And in "Bad Lieutenant," things do get supremely, hilariously weird.

Cage's character, Terence McDonagh, is a cartoonishly evil policeman. Minutes into the film he injures his back while begrudgingly saving a drowning man. He forms an addiction to Vicodin, which leads him towards other meds, resulting in multiple addictions.

Cage spends most of his screen time jittering from smokin' the crack rock, chilled-out from puffing marijuana or catatonically lounging from snorting heroin. As he investigates the murder of an immigrant family, he sinks deeper into his drug and gambling problems, becoming entangled with the very criminals he's supposed to be hunting down.

Cage's cynical, drug-addled, compulsively gambling policeman, compared to his recent nauseating roles in "National Treasure" or "Wicker Man," is unexpectedly good. His limp, hunched back, ceaseless cursing and contemptuous snarl lend his performance a seductive wickedness. Even as he's committing unspeakable acts, you can't help but like him. Sure, McDonagh has sex with a young man's girlfriend while forcing him to watch as they hit the young man's crack pipe, and yes, he brandishes a gun at a pair of octogenarian women, needlessly threatening to kill them.

But in doing so, Cage conjures up the blackest kind of comedy, winning you over even though you know he's an unredeemable asshole. Eva Mendes' turn as McDonagh's sultry prostitute girlfriend and Xzibit's solid take on Big Fate, a suave, drug kingpin, both prop up the film nicely. But this is Cage's film, and his maniacal performance crackles all over the screen.

The only character in "Bad Lieutenant" more interesting than Cage's isn't human: Herzog's depiction of nature shapes the film as much or more than Cage does. The story takes place in a post-Katrina wasteland New Orleans. Dilapidated neighborhoods are filled with boarded-up shotgun shacks. Visible water damage permeates the landscape and overgrown vegetation lines sidewalks. The cinematography makes the N'awlins sun palpable. You can feel humid rays beating through the screen while watching drops of perspiration roll down actors' faces.

Herzog has always been interested in the cruel, grotesque side of nature, whether he's exploring the Amazon in "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" or discussing the predatory instincts of wild animals in "Grizzly Man." His New Orleans is filled with roadkilled alligators, menacing iguanas and vicious-looking fish. He equates men with beasts, placing both in a terrifying environment where violence and predation are rewarded.

The brutal film's climax is its strongest moment. This sequence of cracked, surreally violent mayhem, filled with side-splittingly unconventional dialogue, must be seen to be believed.

Its incredibility makes "Bad Lieutenant" fail miserably as a coherent crooked cop movie. If you expect "Training Day" set in New Orleans, you'll be disappointed with its stiltedness. But it's meant to fail as a typical bad-cop flick. Herzog spins this Hollywood formula in a funny, subversive way, infusing it with discomforting aesthetics. Viewed as an enigmatic figure's meta-cinematic comment on the genre, "Bad Lieutenant" will surely satisfy.