Movie Reviews this week looks at the crime drama The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans. This is a very strange crime drama, starring Nicholas Cage (Next) as Detective Terence McDonagh, investigating the murder of a Senegalese family during Hurricane Katrina.
We meet Terence and his side kick Stevie Pruit played by Val Kilmer (Tombstone) in a prison where a convict is pleading with them to help him get out of the flooding jail he is trapped in, from their ridicule of the plight of the convict, we realise Terence and Stevie are not exactly upright holders of the law. Terence going against his behaviour so far, and facing ruin of his expensive undergarments jumps into the filthy water in what we assume is to save the drowning convict, the scene cuts to Terence at the doctor's where he is told he must be on medication from now on, for injuring his back, Terence asks if he will be on medication for ever, the doctor's facial expressions gives the game away, even though he says there are great advances being made in dealing with such conditions, you realise Terence will have to be on medication for the rest of his life for his bad back; and indeed throughout the rest of the movie he walks with an obvious painful haunch.
It turns out Terence is not only hooked on the prescription medication he is taking for his bad back, but also hooked on a lot more harder drugs, which he gets from anywhere he can, first by stopping party goers and going through their belongings to find any narcotics, and from his girlfriend who is also a prostitute Frankie Donnenfeld, played by Eva Mendes (Hitch).
Despite his indiscretions, Terence doesn't stop being a policeman, and he seems to make amends for his obvious imperfections, by following through with whatever task he has been laden with as an upholder of the law, in this case to find and bring to book the murderer of the Senegalese family.
To aide him bring the main suspect Big Fate (played by Xzibit) to book, he has found a witness Daryl, played by Denzel Whitaker (Forrest Whitaker's son, and Carter in Brothers and Sisters), who he has to protect until the case goes to trial. Unfortunately things are not so straight forward. Frankie has been ripped off by a customer until Terence using his power and reputation as a police officer to get the customer to pay Frankie. It turns out the customer is connected to the mob and they are set to extract the amount he paid as well as "interest", or else Frankie and Terence would be in a heap of trouble.
Added to this, things are not going so well for Frankie, as his behaviour has landed him into being scrutinized by Internal Affairs, which is not helped with his drug addiction.
The Bad Lieutanent: Port of Call - New Orleans is a strange tale of crime and addiction from the point of view of one whose job is to uphold the law, and the question of our protagonist being able to redeem himself seeing he is as criminal as the criminals he chases, is what holds the suspense in this movie together.
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