What the hell is Werner Herzog thinking?? The guy has one small commercial success with “Rescue Dawn” (starring Christian Bale) and the guy thinks he can remake a scumbag classic like “The Bad Lieutenant”
Why does anyone ever bother re-making great films? If they ain’t broke, don’t fix them (how about mining those great film ideas that were pitifully executed and try another stab at them instead?)
Anyhow, yeah, normally-estimable German director Herzog is going to be remaking Abel Ferrara’s seminally degenerate film about the crookedest of dope/sex fiend cops played by Harvey Keitel in one of his greatest roles ever.
What will be the point? The depraved original was NC-17, and no one has the balls to do that these days. That’s the kiss of death, box-office-wise, so it will clearly not be as fucked up. So… what’s the point?
No nun is gonna get R’d in this is she? Will Nicolas Cage dangle his naked wang in the wind, crying while fucked out of his mind on heroin? (Trust us, this scene won’t be fun wang-danglige like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” – $10 says someone now uses that as the focus of their blog post on this subject; Keitel seemingly gets naked in every other film, not necessarily a sight many people want to see).
The project is due to be announced at Cannes and production will start in late summer (a lot of of bad ideas are being announced at Cannes, what the fuck? Does Hollywood have a fever?).
Vulture points out that the original “Bad Lieutenant” had some major soundtrack issues with the notorious Schooly D song, “Signifying Rapper,” which tried to skate by without clearing its Led Zeppelin “Kashmir” sample, though the track itself wasn’t noticed until the film came out – something that clearly vexed the contumacious Ferrara.
“I’ll strangle that cocksucker Jimmy Page,” the bellicose filmmaker told the Onion in 2002. “As if every fucking lick that guy ever played didn’t come off a Robert Johnson album. “Signifying Rapper” was out for five years, and there wasn’t a problem. Then the film had already been out for two years and they start bitching about it. And these pricks, when their attorneys are on the job, our guys are afraid to come out of their office.
It cost Schooly like $50,000. It was a nightmare. And meanwhile, ‘Signifying Rapper’ is 50 million times better than “Kashmir” ever thought of being.”
If that’s not unassailable proof why “Bad Lieutenant” need not be remade we don’t know what to tell you.
Watch: Harvey Keitel Repents To God In ‘The Bad Lieutenant
Watch: Keitel Gets Naked
