If you’re not a big fan of the Christmas season or if December 25 is simply bearing down on you too fast, check out Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call — New Orleans, the new Werner Herzog film starring Nicholas Cage. The film’s bleached-out colors (it’s more “in gray” than “in color”), along with Cage’s damn-near demented performance as a variously addicted cop, contains not the least whiff of holiday cheer. The movie is funny—very funny—but in a way that will appeal more to your inner Beelzebub than to your Tiny Tim.
The new film is a sort of remake Abel Ferrara’s 1992 Bad Lieutenant. I say “sort of” because Herzog and screenwriter William Finkelstein took Ferrara’s title and his basic concept of the addicted cop, and jettisoned the rest. (Herzog has even claimed that he never saw the original.) When it comes to trans-Atlantic remakes, it’s usually the American filmmakers who dumb down a properly weighty European original. But Herzog has reversed the process. Except that he hasn’t so dumbed the original down as much as he’s lightened it up and set it free.
Ferrara’s (and Harvey Keitel’s) Bad Lieutenant was ultimately a lost soul who was trying to sin so hard that he would get God’s attention, and the film became an extremely Catholic tale of redemption. But Herzog has dropped the religious quest and simply set Nicholas Cage free, gloriously free, with the material.
Cage responds with the greatest cinematic high wire act since Phillip Petit walked that cable between the Twin Towers in Man on Wire. His character “develops” by becoming more outrageous in the ways he abuses drugs and also people—even nice old ladies—when he’s trying to get them to talk.
As the story plays out, you see that Cage’s lieutenant hasn’t really lost his moral bearings as completely as he seemed to. That’s well and good, but the film’s whiff of moral uplift isn’t what I took away. Instead I remember the iguanas that Cage’s character (but no one else) sees in his hallucinations. (They look very real, and when Cage slaps one you hear the thump.) And the shot of an apparently grieving alligator who seems to have just lost his or her mate when a car ran over it. Herzog actually gives us a shot from the alligator’s perspective and somehow renders the fearsome critter kinda human.
The pleasure, and perhaps even the greatness of the film lies in the freedom that both Herzog and Cage grant themselves. They both “go wild.” But both of them frame and master their daring: Herzog within the restraints of genre film, which he honors, and Cage within the discipline that he ultimately applies to his performance. He does all kinds of tricks out there on the high wire, but never falls off.
I loved Bad Lieutenant, but thinking about it is a little depressing as well. There is so little inspired movie making these days that this film feels like a revelation. When did it become so rare for the movies to show real daring and imagination?
Movie Review
Star TV producer James L. Brooks stumbles with meandering movie Ella McCay
The impact that writer/director/producer James L. Brooks has made on Hollywood cannot be understated. The 85-year-old created The Mary Tyler Moore Show, personally won three Oscars for Terms of Endearment, and was one of the driving forces behind The Simpsons, among many other credits. Now, 15 years after his last movie, he’s back in the directing chair with Ella McCay.
The similarly-named Emma Mackey plays Ella, a 34-year-old lieutenant governor of an unnamed state in 2008 who’s on the verge of becoming governor when Governor Bill (Albert Brooks) gets picked to be a member of the president’s Cabinet. What should be a happy time is sullied by her needy husband, Ryan (Jack Lowden), her agoraphobic brother, Casey (Spike Fearn), and her perpetually-cheating father, Eddie (Woody Harrelson).
Despite the trio of men competing to bring her down, Ella remains an unapologetic optimist, an attitude bolstered by her aunt Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), her assistant Estelle (Julie Kavner), and her police escort, Trooper Nash (Kumail Nanjiani). The film follows her over a few days as she navigates the perils of governing, the distractions her family brings, and the expectations being thrust upon her by many different people.
Brooks, who wrote and directed the film, is all over the place with his storytelling. What at first seems to be a straightforward story about Ella and her various issues soon starts meandering into areas that, while related to Ella, don’t make the film better. Prime among them are her brother and father, who are given a relatively small amount of screentime in comparison to the importance they have in her life. This is compounded by a confounding subplot in which Casey tries to win back his girlfriend, Susan (Ayo Edebiri).
Then there’s the whole political side of the story, which never finds its focus and is stuck in the past. Though it’s never stated explicitly, Ella and Governor Bill appear to be Democrats, especially given a signature program Ella pushes to help mothers in need. But if Brooks was trying to provide an antidote to the current real world politics, he doesn’t succeed, as Ella’s full goals are never clear. He also inexplicably shows her boring her fellow lawmakers to tears, a strange trait to give the person for whom the audience is supposed to be rooting.
What saves the movie from being an all-out train wreck is the performances of Mackey and Curtis. Mackey, best known for the Netflix show Sex Education, has an assured confidence to her that keeps the character interesting and likable even when the story goes downhill. Curtis, who has tended to go over-the-top with her roles in recent years, tones it down, offering a warm place of comfort for Ella to turn to when she needs it. The two complement each other very well and are the best parts of the movie by far.
Brooks puts much more effort into his female actors, including Kavner, who, even though she serves as an unnecessary narrator, gets most of the best laugh lines in the film. Harrelson is capable of playing a great cad, but his character here isn’t fleshed out enough. Fearn is super annoying in his role, and Lowden isn’t much better, although that could be mostly due to what his character is called to do. Were it not for the always-great Brooks and Nanjiani, the movie might be devoid of good male performances.
Brooks has made many great TV shows and movies in his 60+ year career, but Ella McCay is a far cry from his best. The only positive that comes out of it is the boosting of Mackey, who proves herself capable of not only leading a film, but also elevating one that would otherwise be a slog to get through.
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Ella McCay opens in theaters on December 12.