You have to assume that before the flood, Detective McDonagh was a pretty decent guy. He's not the world's greatest person, but he tries. At the very beginning, he jumps in to save an inmate from flooding when his partner Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer) wants to just let him drown. Perhaps McDonagh would have been better letting him drown too though. In jumping in, he hurts his back. The doctor tells him that he's got permanent damage and will be on pain killers like Vicodin for the rest of his life. Six months later, McDonagh is way past simple Vicodin. He's snorting coke, smoking crack, and taking any kind of pills that he can get his hands on. But somehow he's still functioning enough that he can cover it from his co-workers and still get his job done.
When he's sent to investigate the execution killing of some immigrants dealing drugs though, things start to really go downhill. It seems like every step he makes, McDonagh gets further and further in trouble. It doesn't help matters that his girlfriend, Frankie (Eva Mendes), is a prostitute who's also addicted to drugs. Between him and her, they're going through a lot of drugs. Given her profession as well, McDonagh has to be her pimp sometimes. McDonagh's gambling addiction doesn't help matters either. While he might have a great sixth sense as a cop, he sucks at picking winners. Eventually when you go through that many drugs, you're going to start dealing them as well. McDonagh's into to pretty much everything illegal that you can think of at this point, but yet he is still functioning in his job. When things really start to get bad, he sends Frankie to live with his father, Pat (Tom Bower), and his step-mother, Genevieve (Jennifer Coolidge). Pat's an addict starting to rehab, so you can imagine how well the prostitute drug addict living there is going to work. Given how much McDonagh's life is spiraling out of control, is there any way that he's ever going to get out of everything?
Bad Lieutenant is really good movie for the majority of it. The best way I can describe it is a cross between The Shield and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I really felt like I was watching Fear and Loathing when the iguanas were on the screen! But I've got to say that I really just hated the ending. The last 20 minutes or so of the movie made no sense to me, or at least were very unrealistic!
The acting in Bad Lieutenant was wonderfully superb! Nicholas Cage does an amazing job staying in perfect character the entire movie. If you've seen people with back pain, quite often they'll walk with one shoulder higher than the other. Cage doesn't forget this limp the entire movie. His downward spiral from functioning druggie to barely passable as human is perfect. All the acting in the movie is very good. Given that it is set in New Orleans, I was half expecting some really horrible accents to have to suffer through, but they all sounded believable. I love the fact that it was shot in New Orleans as well. You can tell that they really are in New Orleans and they made sure to shoot scenes like the one with the now abandoned Six Flags in the background just to give it more authenticity. There are also two special features on the DVD to give you more to watch. I loved the Making-of myself as it was a really good behind-the-scenes look at New Orleans, as well as the movie.
Overall, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans was a decent movie. I still really don't care for the ending at all, but the rest of the movie mostly makes up for it. If you like action movies, it's worth checking out.
