The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans

In the 1970's and 1980's Werner Herzog filmmaking was simply kamikaze  especially the films he shoot with his long time friend/enemy Klaus  Kinski. He never attained the virtuosity and inspiration of this period.  Meanwhile, his films still have this raw filmmaking energy that only  Herzog can bring into a film. Without a doubt he his a real author, and  he gave the opportunity to the overrated Nic Cage to give one of his  best performance ever.

Being a remake of Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant (a film I haven't  seen yet), Herzog's film is set in a different location and in another  time. I won't make comparisons or parallels between the two films  because: first, I haven't seen the oiginal material and second, it would  be boring to do so.

Herzog always had this realistic approach to cinematography and he even  shoot scenes in a very naturalistic animal documentary style. The  opening sequence with the snake in the water is somptuous and  intriguiying, because the viewer asks himself how low the film will go? A  lot like Herzog's Nosferatu with the opening with the skulls  that makes a grim atmosphere. The snake in the water represents how the  Lieutenant will go "bad", how evil will touch him and make an unerasable  mark on him. Later in the film there are other sequences with  animals/reptiles. The two iguanas and the two crocodiles. They signify  how this world of excess will disintegrate society. Each insert of them  is shot in a very unique way and it makes a weird pause in the telling  of the story. It seems like if we were the only ones to see them like it  if was an hallucination of the main character.

Another important topic and main issue of the film is the drug sellings  that leads to the murderers and the drug abuses by the Lieutenant  himself. The paths are crossed and the milieux of Police and Drug are so  closed that we feel that these worlds are parallel to each other. This  is a denounciation of how Drugs destroy the better and the worse of  humans. The Lieutenant that will execute his mission, the football  player, the prostitute, etc. It touches every character of the movie and  it makes a statement that it represents everything that's wrong in this  country. The conclusion of the film is beyond cinema itself, there are  no happy endings in drug addiction and even success can't erase it  completely.

Herzog's latest offering is a great achievement, while throwing a very  conventionnal police plot it advances a real antihero that even with his  worst he can get to his goal. Just for the cinematography the film is  worth the look. Herzog didn't offers an effort as strong as his Aguirre or his Fitzcarraldo but he offers an honest and well directed film.

Recommendations: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie, Duel

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - **

Review:  Bad Lieutenant is about exactly that.  A police officer who is a "bad" lieutenant.  He does drugs, takes bribes, sexually assaults women, and tampers with evidence.  There is seemingly no redeemable qualities about the character Nicolas Cage plays in this movie.

His character is dating a prostitute who he uses to score drugs off of her customers.  He has a recovering alcoholic father he rarely makes time to see and generally does not have a very sunny disposition.

The movies follows this character as he tries to solve the murder of a family of 5 Sengalese immigrants in New Orleans.  Through the process he takes more drugs and gets involved with many more illicit characters along the way.  These people help to propel the story along and Cage's character tries to get them to help him solve this murder.  As the movie goes on it becomes less and less about the solving of this case and more about a character study of this character and how he became this "bad lieutenant."  He didn't start out this way and it seems he is not "bad" to his core.  However, it is hard to tell this as the character study is given a pretty one note performance by Cage.  The supporting cast seems to be there for no other reason than to either provide more ways for Cage's character to mess up or to help him, although neither are really successful. 

This movie had potential and an intriguing possible storyline but it ultimately fails to deliver as Cage and the rest of the performances aren't as nuanced as they need to be for this material.  Not to mention it seems unclear the style the director is going for and interrupts with movie watching process with weird collage scenes.  This movie just could have been better and I would say it ultimately probably not worth your time.

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The Bad Lieutenant

Starring:  Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer
Drama, Rated R (2009)
Terence (Cage) is a police officer who injures himself on the job and partakes in a pill popping, drug dependent, corrupt lifestyle in which he crosses all kinds of lines and stops as nothing to keep up his habit.

• This is indeed the story of a bad Lieutenant.  A very bad Lieutenant indeed.  This guy was dirty and had no qualms about breaking any and every rule in the book.
• From the very beginning you can already tell that this cop is a loose cannon but we see so little of him before his injury that it isnt' clear to me if he was always so corrupt and dirty or if the onset of his injury steered him in that direction.
• He and his "girlfriend" Frankie (Mendes) share some kind of strange co dependent relationship involving the sharing of drugs and a suspect way of keeping up their lifestyle.
• It was interesting to see a metamorphosis of sorts occur in Frankie and equally sad to see that it does not appear that Terence intends to follow suit. 
• If this were a cliche fairy tale movie he and Frankie would end up happily ever after but life unlike movies often is not a fairy tale and this story tells us so.
• Nicolas Cage was amazing of course.  He played the role of this deranged out of control Lieutenant to perfection.  I have always been a huge fan and he did not disappoint.

4/5 Stars

Just Me

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans

What's with that title?

Despite obvious appearances to the contrary, this isn't a sequel to 1992's Harvey Keitel-starring Bad Lieutenant. It isn't even a prequel, or a remake, or a spin-off. Director Werner Herzog has publicly stated that the title was probably a bad idea, while Abel Ferrara, director of the 1992 film, has said that he hopes the cast and crew of the new movie "die in Hell".

So why is the title still there? Clearly someone felt there was an untapped market awaiting more of Ferrara's cult classic, but Herzog and stars Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes should have been enough to bring in the crowds. They didn't need to hijack someone else's title.

What's ironic is that this is the better of the two films, featuring Cage's finest performance in years, and some of Herzog's most commercially viable material to boot. Plus it has a level of compassion and narrative progression that Ferrara's movie lacked. They shouldn't have to piggyback their way to success - Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans is a movie that sells itself.

Police Sergeant Terence McDonagh (Cage) injures his back while rescuing a trapped prisoner during Hurricane Katrina, and his promotion to Lieutenant is poor compensation for the chronic pain he suffers with his new condition. When the prescription drugs fail to do their job he begins to self-medicate, sinking into a spiral of painkillers, hash, cocaine and heroin that threatens his career, and his life.

He fixates on the brutal murder of a Senegalese family by a local drug dealer, but the borders between Terence and his suspects begin to blur as he freewheels from one disaster to another. He owes his bookie a fortune, his hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendes) has been abused by a local gangster, and his one witness has skipped town on a plane to London.

When Terence starts torturing old ladies and extorting drugs and sex from young clubbers, you know that he's crossing more than one line.

The story keeps Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans anchored in something far more satisfying than this catalogue of excesses might suggest, however, and you'll be shocked to find yourself rooting for this damaged cop come the pay-off. He may be a bad dude, but at least he's a righteous one.

It helps that Cage shows a return to the form that made his name in the first place, and this is a far cry from the squeaky-clean heroics of National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets and Next. Cage has always been at his best when he's tipping over the edge, and here he's allowed to go out on every single limb that's placed in front of him. He hasn't been this entertaining since 2002's Adaptation, and fans will love the flashbacks to Leaving Las Vegas, and even Wild At Heart.

The same can be said of Val Kilmer, who has made some truly mediocre films over the last few years - but here he bugs out with abandon, proving that he doesn't have to remain stuck in straight-to-DVD hell forever. In fact, all of the cast bring their characters to life with verve and excitement, even as Cage is stealing the show.

The film's one flaw lies in Herzog's occasional slip in tone as he explores the local wildlife with his handheld camera, but even that isn't enough to derail Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans. With such a vibrant city as the backdrop, and a host of memorable performances, this deserves far better treatment than the ripped-off title suggests. Just try to forget the name, and relax into this edgy cocktail from the Big Easy.

4/5

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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

*A note regarding the title: the case of the DVD for this film features the title as you see it here, but the title in the actual film is "The Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call: New Orleans." I'm just sticking with the case title because that's how I've seen it written up elsewhere.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans - Directed by Werner Herzog, starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, and Xzibit - Rated R

Cage is as crazy as the Kurgan in this one.


This is a weird one. First off, the title. It makes it sound like this is a remake, sequel, or re-imagining of the Abel Ferrara film from the 90s starring Harvey Keitel. It's certainly similar on a basic level. Cage is indeed a bad lieutenant and he has problems with drugs and gambling, just like Keitel did in the original. But Cage has a name here, Terence McDonagh, whereas Keitel's character went nameless. It's similar enough in basic plot points to share the title Bad Lieutenant I suppose, but it is vastly different tonally.


The Ferrara film is quite serious and very disturbing. Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant is not a straightforward comedy or anything, but it is certainly not as cerebral as Ferrara's film. This is not a bad thing. In fact, I wish all "remakes" were like this. Why make the same exact movie again? Instead, Herzog and Cage have collaborated to make something really special. I call this movie special because there are so many different ways to look at it. Here are the main four, in my opinion.


#1 - Bad Lieutenant can be taken as a serious police drama with a few wacky moments. There is a surprisingly linear plot involving a drug lord and a murder investigation. If you watch it like that, though, I think most people will see it as a failure.#2 - This film can be seen as a hallucinogenic drug trip movie, as well. Cage sees iguanas that don't exist. He sees a person's soul dancing. And a couple times I felt the fourth wall was broken. Then there are the reptiles. Every time a reptile appears, Herzog gets ground level with it, and observes the action from the animal's point of view. There's a message in there somewhere, but it's more trippy than philosophical.

#3 - Some people have claimed that this film is actually a parody of typical cop dramas. I can see where that idea shows up. There are some very cheesy elements to this film. It's the little things that caught my attention: the fact that every cop calls every suspect "son," the reaction shots of the officers as they're told about a suspect, etc. And there are clichés aplenty in the story. A corrupt cop at the end of his rope is not the most original story out there. But I can understand people not buying into the parody aspect. It does sound like I'm making excuses to like a film from a seasoned director. Maybe that's the case, but I'm always going to give a proven director the benefit of the doubt when it comes to things like this. I truly believe that any cheesy aspect of this film is completely intentional. (SPOILER ALERT) I think most people will agree with me when they see the scene near the end in which every plotline is resolved in a matter of seconds. The scene is shot somewhat from Cage's perspective and you get this, "Is this really happening?" vibe from it. It's such terrible screenwriting that it has to be done on purpose to get the viewer thinking about what has just happened. To further the idea that the audience has just watched a type of parody, Cage looks directly into the camera and laughs at the very end as if he's in on some joke that's just been pulled.

#4 - The best way to look at this film, however, is as a Nicolas Cage showcase and just go with it. I'm a Cage fan (I honestly enjoy The Wicker Man because of his over the top/strange performance), so regardless of everything else in this film, I knew from the start that I would love it. He brings the crazy in this one and it's fantastic. In the middle of the film he switches to some kind of Jimmy Stewart accent here and there. His character's chronic back pain coupled with extreme drug abuse might explain the change, but it's not consistent. It's just weird and I loved it. His voicework and his typical antics aside, Cage delivers an interesting physical performance as well.

Werner Herzog collaborated with the strange and amazing Klaus Kinski a number of times before that actor's death. Here, I think Cage is channeling Kinski, physically. He skulks around (due to his back pain) much like Kinski in Aguirre. More importantly, Cage perfectly mimics Kinski's death stare. The stare that makes it seem like he is on the verge of freaking out at any moment. I hope that Herzog and Cage make more films together, because I can imagine great things in the future from these two.The supporting cast is impressive in this film, but they all just seemed boring compared to Cage. Kilmer is decent in his few scenes, and I enjoyed Michael Shannon's short role. But Shea Whigam and Brad Dourif were the most amusing side characters as a threatening john and a bookie, respectively.

Of course, when Herzog is involved there's going to more going on in the film than just acting. His camerawork is great as usual. He has this seemingly effortless ability to give his films a dreamlike/meandering quality. There are no "wow" takes or anything, but the camerawork is still more interesting than in a typical film.

So Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a bit of a difficult film, not because it has an overly complicated plot or anything, but because there are so many different ways to look at it. I suggest giving it a chance no matter how you interpret it. Because even if you hate it, you'll at least get to see Nicolas Cage crazy up the screen; and who doesn't enjoy that?

Eric Harris - www.canneltoncritic.com

Last updated: 2010-05-08 08:34:45 by user06

The Bad Lieutenent: Port of Call New Orleans: Movie Review

Lady luck has not been on Nicolas Cage's side for quite some time now. Movie after movie turns out to be huge flops for the guy (perhaps except the "National Treasure" films). Dare we proclaim that Nicolas Cage is the Eddie Murphy of the action genre? Now, Nicolas Cage has a new movie to boot with "The Bad Lieutenant: Port if Call New Orleans", a remake of a 1992 crime-drama film. It seems to us that the bad streak for Nicolas Cage might just continue forth with this new attempt. Honestly, things are not looking good right from the get-go as the film gives off a lackluster feel. Read on to find out our final say on the film.

Terrence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) has always been a good cop, not until a bad back injury hit him after saving a trapped prisoner during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. This permanent back injury will give Terrence severe back pains for the rest of his life. In time, Terrence has become addicted to his medications and then to illegal drugs to relieve himself from the pain. His dependence to drugs makes him do the unthinkable - steal drug evidence. This will soon connect him to a drug dealer named Big Fate (Xzibit) - a man who murdered an innocent family."The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" is not a bad attempt for Nicolas Cage. In fact, this is several notches up from his past films. First things first, Nicolas Cage was just phenomenal on this film. His acting was superb - it was as if his character, Terrence McDonagh, was made for him. The story is also a strength of this movie. The story was well-written and although some of it may be too over-the-top to be true, it still had us gasping from time to time. We were also satisfied with the things that happened in the end. Too bad though that this film suffers from scenes that are otherworldly and an overall production that feels a tad lower than the usual Hollywood film. "The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call News Orleans" is just an average joe action film, not bad for Cage.

Rating: 3.5 reels

Why you should watch it:
- Nicolas Cage was brilliant to say the least
- A story that is creative and has a surprising conclusion

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- has some scenes that will make your jaw drop with its absurdity
- needs a lot of improvement in its production values

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Recommendations:

Last updated: 2010-03-11 20:04:41 by user06

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans
Starring:
Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit
Director: Werner Herzog
Genre: Crime, Drama
Rated: R

Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans is the Sequel/Remake of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant that only shares a title and a bad cop in common. Set in New Orleans it follows policeman Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) who after hurting his back rescuing a criminal during Hurricane Katrina becomes addicted to drugs and begins a downward spiral that he cannot control.

Set in Louisiana Terence has gone from being a cop awarded for his bravery to a cop who due to back pain starts taking prescribed Vicodin and then with no explanation is dating a prostitute, shaking down alleged suspects for drugs and stealing drugs from the property room. Lesson Learned is that If you have a back problem Vicodin is the gateway drug to crack and heroine. Nicolas Cage is now a Caricature of his former self; he shuffles around hunchbacked with a .45 down his pants, and about an hour and ten minutes into the film decides he needs to start using a ridiculous accent ripped from a 1930’s gangster film. Even more distracting than his over the top performance is that in homage to the giant rodent of New Orleans called “Nutria”, Cage decides to wear something that resembles it as his hair piece. (The guy has made enough money off of awful movies this past decade, can they not get him a wig that isn’t distracting.)

After having zero chemistry in the completely awful “Ghostrider” Eva Mendes is paired up again as Nic’s Girlfriend “Frankie” Eva who’s best work has been in print ads where she doesn’t have to speak, move or act stars as the Girlfriend/Prostitute who gets Terence mixed up with a well connected John who starts squeezing him for cash when Terence interrupts his session with her. Terrence is also a degenerate gambler who is about as good at gambling as he is being a cop. The actual main plot of the story is loose cannon Terry trying to put together a case against Big Fate (Rapper Exhibit) who is responsible for five murders over his drug turf. You know the movie is convoluted when the host of “Pimp my ride” gives one of the better performances of the film.  All loose strings in the film are tied together in a pretty bow and given a Disney type ending that is so unbelievably awful you think Terrance is experiencing a drug fueled hallucination unfortunately he isn’t. All is not lost however as there is one scene that is reminiscent of the original film’s famous masturbation scene this time it involves shaking down a couple after they leave a club and Terrance ends up having sex with the girlfriend against a car while screaming to make the boyfriend watch. While that scene is unintentionally hilarious, that is as good as it gets with this mess of a film.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Alternate title: "Boring Lieutenant: Port of Call Artistic Disaster."

What's notable about "Bad Lieutenant" isn't what's done wrong. What jumps out is the total absence of anything done right. There is no driving vision. There is no overarching story. There is no coherence of style or theme. Even the color palette veers from white to blue to orange without rhyme or reason.

All this is somewhat suprising given the director is famed documentarian Werner Herzog, and goes to show that glitzy Hollywood film-making ain't as easy as it looks.

Herzog is working off a script by television writer William Finkelstein that is full of cliches, inauthenticities and a shocking lack of action. For a movie whose dialogue sucks, "Port of Call" is all talk talk talk.

The plot, and I use the word generously, follows homicide detective Nic Cage's investigation of a quintuple murder in New Orleans.

 
The investigation lasts about half the movie before Cage confesses he doesn't care about the murder. All he cares about is snorting cocaine, hanging out with prostitute Eva Mendez -- who isn't allowed to be sexy at all! For shame! -- taking care of his recovering alcoholic father and drug-using stepmother, and settling accounts with both his college football bookie and the ridiculously caricatured Italian mafia whose money he inadvertently steals from one of Mendez' clients.

So you see, this isn't a plot at all. It's just a bunch of stuff that happens!

To do a "slice of life" story like this, you really have to nail the gritty realistic tone of life on the literal and figurative street.

But that's impossible with Nic Cage playing a "tough" cop, Mendez playing a "savvy" prostitute and rapper Xzibit playing a "badass" drug dealer.


The dialogue is so trite and the situations so contrived that every scene in "Bad Lieutenant" feels staged.

And that's before Herzog plops the camera in front of the action like we're watching a three-camera sitcom minus the laugh track. You only do that when you have supreme confidence in what is unfolding in front of the camera, like when Tarantino had Sam Jackson and John Travolta talk about foot massages at the end of a long hallway in "Pulp Fiction." You don't do it when Nic Cage is hyper-ventilating about Tennesse covering the spread against Alabama.

Move the camera, Werner! I implore you!


Of course, in the department of be-careful-what-you-wish-for, Herzog occasionally takes an utterly bizarre point of view with the camera, like when he shows a scene unfold from the vantage point of an iguana the Nic Cage character is hallucinating. That was a change of pace, I grant you. But it also added nothing. Every choice Herzog made went astray.

And maybe it didn't matter. When the script is a mess, what kind of power does a director have anyway?


Despite all the goofy hallucinations, the sprawling cast of characters, the nonsensical plot, one of Nic Cage's worst hairdos and weirdest performances, the movie doesn't even achieve a level of campy fun.


Why a bad movie doesn't cross the line into "so bad it's good" territory is hard to discern, but maybe here it's because of Herzog's slow pacing, slack editing and failure to find striking images anywhere in the film.

I guess no matter how bad a script is, a bad director can always make it worse.

And yes, I understand it's heresy to call the hallowed Werner Herzog a bad director. But he's way out of his element here and it shows.

It doesn't help that fat Val Kilmer is hardly in three scenes. Why even cast fat Val Kilmer if you don't intend to use him?

SCORE

How Accomplished: 19/100

How Much I Enjoyed: 16/100  

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Super Marcey's The Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans Review

Rating: 4/5

Bad Lieutenant, where do I even start? I don't think I would even call this a remake of the 1992 film Bad Lieutenant by Abel Ferrara, they only share the title really. They are nothing a like at all, the characters in question are different, the tone of the films are different and that is all I will say about that.

So what exactly is this film about? In a nutshell, we meet Terence McDonagh (Nic Cage) who is a detective, and he gambles, does drugs and has a prostitute girlfriend. He is a bit of a crazy man, however he is on the case to solve a series of murders. That is really what this film is about, there is more to it but you really just need to see it.

This is a film that you will either really love or you will hate it, it certainly is not for everyone and it is a bit of an acquired taste. Werner Herzog has created his own thing here, and he got the perfect person to play his Bad Lieutenant, this was made for Nic Cage. No one else can do crazy the way Nic Cage does it. Now he has been in some bad films, put on bad crazy performances, but I found he was actually rather good as Terence. I liked his performance and he brought this strange appeal to the character. He is not someone you would like but some how you find yourself on his side and you don't want anything bad to happen to him (Kind of the way that happens with Vic on The Shield).

The supporting cast are actually all rather good and I was pleasantly surprised by Eva Mendes who I normally find average at best, she was quite good as Frankie the prostitute girlfriend. Shawn Hatosy and Val Kilmer were rather good as the other detectives, they played off Nic Cage really well and it worked. There are a lot of cameos to keep an eye out for, just check them out I wont ruin them for you.

I felt that my experience with this film, the less I actually knew the better it worked out. This is often the case and I really do not want to divulge too much more about it. I felt the script itself was solid, there are some good twists and turns and some very odd events you wont see coming. It is hard to pin point what Herzog wanted to say exactly with this film, you just go along for the ride.

(Review written Feb 11th 2010, first posted on SuperMarcey.com)

Recommendations: Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009), Milk, Hurt Locker, The (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)

Last updated: 2010-02-14 21:00:48 by SuperMarcey

Not as expected, but I liked it

From the previous comments from movie critics and normal viewers alike I thought this is going to be a masterpiece of acting from Nicholas Cage, a rendering of a truly bad good guy, a true "anti hero" not the pansies that passed as such lately.

Maybe that skewed my perspective, but to me, Nicholas Cage played his usual semi maniacal role and it was not something special (for him at least). I know that he played in a lot of crappy films lately, but he was doing similar roles in movies like Face Off and National Treasure.

Also, the anti hero was not a pansy, but not a true anti hero either. More of a western sheriff cowboy thing. And at a certain point in the film it started to annoy me. However, at the end, I thought the whole thing was vindicated. And I will explain why and why I believe the ending saved the movie from mediocrity.

After a twisted path in which Cage's character lied, stole, threatened and even arranged things so that people get killed, everything falls into place like magic and all in a series of scenes that practically end everything on a positive note. You see, this kind of movie practice is best found in "he was dead" movies, when at the end we see that he was dead all along or that everything was in his head or something similar.

THAT saved the film, because it made the movie show how a good guy can get at the very edge of things, then ended it with a separate chapter almost completely different in spirit than what came before. And that makes the viewer understand that in this case it ends well, but it might just as well ended up in disaster. I thought that in itself was pretty brilliant.

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Vincent Snavely

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Nicolas Cage has made some…um…intersting films before, but this one is just  flat out odd at points.
I chose to watch this flick this week because it was suggested as a film that  was so bad, it was good. However, this was not the case.
This picture seemed to be caught in that soupy mix of not knowing whether it  wants to be serious, a spoof, or whatever. I don’t have a problem with mixing  tones, if it can be done well. Sadly, that is not the case here.
There are total random moments that make no sense, such as alligators in the  middle of the highway, iguanas singing, disembodied souls dancing. These are all  things that make you sit back and say WTF?!?
The pacing of this thing is horrible. After the first half hour or so, I  found myself constantly looking at my watch, wondering how much longer this  thing was going to go on.
To make things worse, just as it seems as if this film was about to pick up  ad get interesting, it suddenly decides to start wrapping everything up in a  nice little bow. Normally, I don’t have a problem with this, but for some  reason, it just didn’t feel right for this film.
Xzibit surprised me in this film, as I had no idea he could act. I knew he  could rap and host Pimp My Ride, but not act, so it was good to see him  do something else. I believe that he even upstaged Nicolas Cage.
Speaking of Cage, there are moments that you would think this character was  written specifically for him, and other times when you wonder what he was doing  taking this role. I seriously wondered if he was trying to be Al Pacino,  because there are times, especially with this character’s back issues, that he  reminded me of Bog Boy Caprice, and other that he sounded like he could have  been a Corleone.
Eva Mendes brings a bit of eye candy to the screen, but not much else, until  the part where she gets hit by a customer, which spawns a whole new set of  problems for Cage’s character.
This film is not without its problems, but there are too many of them to  ignore. I wish I could say that I enjoyed this flick, but I didn’t. It plodded  along, didn’t keep my interest, and just wasn’t very good. Apparently this is a  remake, so that might be another reason that I don’t care for it, but I just  found this out a few minutes ago. Do I recommend this to anyone? No, trust me,  it isn’t worth the time. Stay away if you can.
2 out of 5 stars
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