Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

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Audience Member I haven't even watched the movie but there are some scenes I saw on youtube and they were really good. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 10/16/24 Full Review Rafaelle L Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans as a Commentary on Jazz Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) might not immediately appear to be a commentary on jazz, but if you view it through the lens of improvisation, chaos, and the resilience of spirit, it becomes a kind of cinematic jazz composition. Much like a jazz performance, the film embraces dissonance, allowing its protagonist, Terrence McDonagh (played by Nicolas Cage), to riff wildly through the narrative like a soloist lost in a frenetic improvisation. The movie’s unpredictable shifts in tone and rhythm, its mix of absurdity, beauty, and decay, mirror the essence of jazz itself. At its core, jazz is about tension and release, about finding harmony amid chaos, and that is exactly how the film unfolds. McDonagh’s journey, spiraling into addiction, corruption, and delusion, echoes the improvisational structure of a jazz piece—where each note or decision threatens to fall apart but somehow resolves into something new. Cage’s performance feels akin to the great jazz solos: erratic, sometimes off-kilter, but undeniably compelling. His portrayal of a man constantly walking the tightrope between brilliance and madness captures the essence of jazz’s precarious balance between structure and freedom. New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, is the film’s backdrop, but Herzog’s vision of the city post-Hurricane Katrina is a broken, surreal version of its former self. Much like a jazz tune performed in a minor key, this setting speaks to resilience amidst ruin. The film captures New Orleans in all its contradictions—the decay, the humor, the bursts of life that refuse to be drowned by disaster. This is jazz in visual form: the survival of beauty in the wreckage, the soul of the city speaking through its fractures. The surreal moments in the film, such as the infamous scene involving hallucinatory iguanas, can be seen as Herzog’s experimental interludes—improvisational asides that, like a jazz musician’s wildest flights of fancy, challenge the audience to follow along with the unusual beat. Herzog, much like a jazz composer, layers unexpected sounds and visual rhythms into his narrative, pulling the viewer into a space where reason and absurdity coexist. In this way, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans serves as a cinematic reflection of jazz’s ethos: embracing unpredictability, finding new paths through familiar structures, and capturing the raw, untamed beauty of life in its most discordant moments. It’s a movie that, much like jazz itself, asks us to find meaning in the chaos, and to appreciate the moments of grace that rise from it. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 09/22/24 Full Review Chief B Such an underrated movie. I don't want to compare it with the first one that's pretty good but this one is superior. I enjoyed every minute of it. And it's Nicolas Cage at his best Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/06/24 Full Review rik b Definitely one of Nic Cage best performances and films he and this mega talented cast made. It shocks me how this is not 5 stars from most all reviews There are scenes in this where Nic goes to super levels with his brilliance and incredible skills. And it's also a very interesting crime/mystery also. Great script. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/19/24 Full Review Drew F Both Cage and Herzog's best film. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 07/09/24 Full Review Paul S Wow that's awful. Feels false at every moment, and what a waste to be set in New Orleans with so little local character. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 04/06/24 Full Review Read all reviews

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

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