Movie Review: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans (2009) 

Directed by Werner Herzog 

Written by William M. Finkelstein

Starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Coolidge, Val Kilmer

Release Date November 20th, 2009

Published November 20th, 2009 

As detective Terrence McDonagh surveys the bloody scene before him, three dead gangsters, a terror shoots through his drug addled mind: "Shoot him again" he shouts. "Why?" says one of his thug cohorts. "Because, his soul's still dancing." The camera pans the scene passing over the dead body of some fat Italian gangster and pausing on what only McDonagh can see, that same gangster's lithe, balletic soul spinning wildly in a break-dance before one final gunshot drops the soul to the floor.

This scene is indicative of what you will get in Werner Herzog's blazingly unconventional re-imagining of Abel Ferrara's darkly comic drama Bad Lieutenant. If this scene intrigues you wait till you see what else Herzog has up his sleeve. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a head trip, dark, an ultra-violent comedy that features yet another comeback performance by Nicolas Cage.

Terence McDonagh wasn't a great cop before he got hooked on drugs. As we meet him, Terence and his partner Stevie (Val Kilmer) are two of the last guys out of the precinct as the waters of Katrina are rising. Finding one last prisoner trapped in a cell, Terence and Stevie begin making wagers on how long it will take for the prisoner to drown. Eventually, Terence decides to rescue the guy but not without consequence.

The rescue injured Terence's back leaving him slumped on one side of his body and in constant pain. Terence deals with the pain through a steady stream of hardcore drugs. Cocaine keeps him going but also fuels his dark side. Post accident, Terence patrols the dark corners of a New Orleans that, post-Katrina, is a sort of Sodom before the rapture place. In a scene of ugly humor turning to near horror, Terence rousts a couple coming out of a nightclub and, well, I will leave you to discover what happens next.

In his private life Terence is in love with a high class prostitute named Frankie (Eva Mendes). She is also hooked on cocaine and the two fuel each others addiction by turning drugs into the fuel of their sex life.

The plot of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans kicks in with the murder of a drug dealing family from Africa in one of the most violent neighborhoods in New Orleans. The cops quickly figure out that the biggest dealer in town is the most likely killer but catching him will take Terence to even stranger and more drugged out places.

Director Werner Herzog is not so much concerned with the twists and turns of a murder plot as he is with giving Nicolas Cage a stage on which to exhibit the talent we all knew was there from his Oscar winning turn in Leaving Las Vegas. Detective McDonagh is the other side of the coin from Ben in Leaving Las Vegas, if the other side of the coin were dirtier and with an even more pronounced death wish.

Yes, the usual Cage histrionics are on display. His hyper-kinetic babbling, his wild haired, wild eyed look, but, this time, it works because the character and the context given by William Finkelstein's excellent script and Werner Herzog's director are the perfect fuel for Cage's antics.

Wildly violent, darkly humorous and directed with freewheeling relish and great skill, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans pays tribute to the disturbing original film while giving the material his own black comic spin. The film also returns Nicolas Cage to Oscar winning form and that is just part of what makes Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans brilliant.

Movie Review: Epic Movie

Epic Movie (2007) 

Directed by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer 

Written by Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer 

Starring Kal Penn, Adam Campbell, Jennifer Coolidge, Jayma Mayes, Crispin Glover 

Release Date January 26th, 2007

Published January 27th, 2007

One movie parody after the next gets worse and worse. Further and further the movies spawned by the success of Scary Movie go from humorous parody to a patchwork of drunken movie karaoke where actors stumble about plots from some of our favorite movies of the decade; missing the beats and never finding the rhythm.

Date Movie was thought to be the nadir of this genre. Sadly, two of the producers of Scary Movie managed to lower the depths and make a movie parody even worse. Epic Movie is an example of how you can dig to the bottom of the barrel and still go lower, if you just lift up the barrel and keep digging, straight to the sewer.

Epic Movie charts an unusual course. Four characters are each initially trapped in their own parody. Edward (Kal Penn) is trapped in a dull facsimile of the orphanage from Nacho Libre, a good movie that really stretches the definition of an 'epic movie'. Peter (Adam Campbell) is locked in the school for mutants from the X-Men movies. Lucy (Jayma Mayes) is escaping a knockoff of The Da Vinci Code and Susan (Faune A. Chambers) is stuck with a parody of Snakes On A Plane.

I say parody only because there is nothing else to call these scenes. Parody, unfortunately, implies that these scenes have a humorous sense about them. They do not. The "parody" of Epic Movie simply calls for the re-enactment of scenes from popular films augmented by bathroom humor, crotch kicking and dull slapstick.

Eventually, these four characters find each other in a Willy Wonka knock-off that leads to a Chronicles of Narnia knock-off and bad copies of Pirates of the Carribean, Borat and the MTV shows Punk'd and Cribs which were timely in, say; 2005. That is one of a myriad of problems with movies like Epic Movie. Our culture moves so quickly that often by the time they are able to finish these cheap reprises, the culture has already moved on to other things. The cribs satire is especially forgetting and tortured.

The comedy of Epic Movie is non-existent, unless you take pleasure in watching likable actors pissing their careers away. Kal Penn, so likable in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, is Epic Movie's biggest victim. With his role on TV's 24 and what I'm sure he hopes is his breakthrough as a dramatic actor in Mira Nair's upcoming The Namesake coming later this year, Penn looked set for stardom. However, after watching him piss down his leg in Epic Movie, how can I possibly take him seriously.

Fred Willard, Jennifer Coolidge and David Carradine all get caught up in the slime of picking up a paycheck for this awful mess of a movie. These terrific actors don't embarrass themselves to degrees that will matter but they should not highlight this one on their resume. Crispin Glover and Darrell Hammond are lucky that they are buried under pounds of makeup for their roles, leaving them almost unrecognizable. For their sake I will leave their parody identities out of this review.

It's difficult to describe just how bad Epic Movie is. I could easily claim that the film is an early candidate for worst movie of the year but, god help me, I hope I don't remember this movie that long. What is worse is that I know the film will do well enough at the box office that yet another should follow this time next year like some kind of annual curse.

At least by then maybe the stench of Epic Movie will have waned.

Movie Review Legally Blonde 2 Red White and Blonde

Legally Blonde 2 Red, White and Blonde

Directed by Charles Herman Wurmfeld 

Written by Kate Kondell 

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Bruce McGill, Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Newhart, Luke Wilson

Release Date July 2nd, 2003 

Published July 4th, 2003

The first Legally Blonde was a hit completely out of left field. Arriving in July 2001 in the midst of the big time summer blockbusters, it was allowed to fly under the radar and surprise audiences with its ebullience, humor and especially its charismatic star Reese Witherspoon. Prior to Legally Blonde, Witherspoon gave off the aura of an indie actress without a hint of Julia Roberts.

Now with Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde only Julia can match Reese paycheck to paycheck. Unfortunately, with that stardom comes consequence. That meant that this sequel, even opening against the blockbuster Terminator 3, would not fly under the radar and would arrive to the kind of scrutiny the first film was lucky to have avoided.

When the first teaser trailers for Legally Blonde 2 landed in theaters back in January they were met not with the fondness that the first films DVD release met but with a cringing unease. As much as I liked the first film, the teaser trailers hints that Elle Woods would be going to Washington seemed to strain my goodwill. Of course, it didn't help that Witherspoon's follow up to Legally Blonde was the god-awful Sweet Home Alabama. So with all this cynicism I wasn't looking forward to Legally Blonde 2.

We pick up some two years after the original left off. Elle Woods is now a successful Boston attorney planning the wedding of the century to her Harvard professor fiancé Emmett (Luke Wilson). She is also planning on being promoted to partner in her law firm until her wedding plans come into conflict with her career. After Elle decides she would like to invite the mother of her pooch Bruiser to her wedding she finds that mom is a test animal at a research lab that happens to be one of her clients. When she asks that the firm ask the client to quit testing, the head of the firm fires her.

Of course this is the same Elle Woods who managed to graduate Harvard law school when everyone in the world said no, so of course this won't stop her. With a new political consciousness Elle leaves Boston for Washington D.C to work for Congresswoman Rudd (Sally Field), who happens to be a former member of Elle's sorority. Once in Washington, Elle is met with the same skepticism she faced at Harvard as her new colleagues quickly dismiss her blondeness and pep.

Just like in the original, it doesn't take long for Elle to win over her new co-workers and soon she is hard at work on her animal rights bill. With the help of a know it all doorman (Bob Newhart in a welcome cameo), Elle learns the secrets of the Congress members she needs to get her bill passed. Using her few connections and her unique sensibility for schmoozing, Elle wins over another former sorority sister turned crusty congresswoman and a right wing NRA Southern Republican (Bruce McGill) who also happens to be a real dog lover.

The film plays out in the same underdog style as the first film with our ever optimistic heroine confounding her cynical opponents with her kill'em with kindness attitude. That is the great thing about this character, no matter what is in front of her she is unrelenting in her sweetness and optimism. In any other character that much glass half emptiness would become grating but as played by Witherspoon, Elle Woods has a sense of self and unique understanding of people that disarms even the most cynical of onscreen opponents and audience members.

The script however, written by Kate Kondell and Down with Love scribes Eve Ahlert and Dennis Drake is even thinner than the original. Providing mere context is not enough to justify this film’s over the top flights of fancy. including a cringe inducing dance sequence and yet another uncomfortably unfunny turn by Jennifer Coolidge as Elle's pal Paulette. Her tight outfits and Tammy Faye Baker makeup look as if they are about to explode at any moment and her numerous non sequiturs painted as jokes are more creepy than funny.

The thinness of script in the first film was easily forgiven because of Witherspoon's whirlwind performance, so winning that it nothing else mattered. In Legally Blonde 2, Witherspoon has to use all of the goodwill developed in the first film to cover this script and she almost does it. Unfortunately, Witherspoon is saddled with one of those lame endings in which the hero gives a speech that wins everyone over to her side and saves the day. The speech is hokey, beyond anything you have ever heard and blows what little chance the film had of succeeding.

There are a couple good laughs in Legally Blonde 2 and yet another star turn by Reese Witherspoon who earns every dollar of her reported $20 million dollar price tag. She's so good I can almost recommend Legally Blonde 2. Almost.