Here is your first look at Werner Herzog’s upcoming “Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans,” a re-envisioning of Abel Ferrera’s 1992 “Bad Lieutenant” that will premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival running from September 2-12.
Starring Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes, Herzog’s take on the story will see a different titular lieutenant than that portrayed by Harvey Keitel in Ferrara’s film and is set in New Orleans rather than New York. Here’s the synopsis:
Terence McDonagh (Cage), a homicide detective with the New Orleans Police Department, is promoted to Lieutenant after he saves a prisoner from drowning in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. However, during his heroic act, he severely injures his back and is put on prescription pain medication. A year later, Terence – struggling with his addictions to sex, Vicodin and cocaine – finds himself in the battle to bring down drug dealer Big Fate, who is suspected of massacring an entire family of African immigrants.
While a seemingly provocative premise, we recently speculated how accurate that might be considering the film has a 14A’ rating in Canada (sometimes the equivalent of PG-13 in the U.S.), but it seems clear from our many Canadian readers that 14-A and Rated R are also synonymous, so we might have been off there. Hey, it happens.
Since filming completed. Herzog has talked up the picture describing it as “a new form of noir“; Cage noted that the film has “franchise potential” (not that he knows what that feels like, right?); and all the while the film continues to struggle to find a distributor (no U.S. or international distributors yet, but perhaps the films appearance at TIFF and the Venice Film Festival will change that).
As well as Cage and Mendes, “Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans” co-stars the likes of Val Kilmer, Xzibit, Fairuza Bulk and Jennifer Coolidge. [Collider]