The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans 2009

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Herzog has found his ideal interpreter, a performer whose truth lies deep in the artifice of performance: ladies and gentlemen, Nicolas Cage, at his finest. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans -- why Port of Call? what does that mean? -- is no masterpiece, but it is undoubtedly the work of a master. Read more

New York Times: Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: If there's a sure thing in movies, it's that if you cast Nicolas Cage in a role in which he goes crazy, he'll rise to the occasion and keep on rising until he seems even loonier than his character. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: If the new film commits the sin of entertainment, it's redeemed by a sense of life's contradictions and distinguished by surreal flourishes that include a pair of iguanas, slithery witnesses to Terence's mania. Read more

John Hartl, Seattle Times: Like the late Klaus Kinski, who so often played crazies in Herzog's earlier movies, Cage is in your face all the way. Laughing maniacally, lying with no sign of a conscience, he pushes the character's frequent tantrums beyond over-the-top. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: It's not always easy to sort out the legitimately inspired touches from the merely campy ones, but the film has a deranged, go-for-broke spirit that makes such distinctions irrelevant. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Nicolas Cage is so gleefully over-the-top as the troubled cop of the title that you will either be repulsed or fascinated by his performance and, since it lives or dies by it, the movie itself. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Frankly, the story isn't remotely as interesting as Cage. Nothing is. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: Cage dives headlong into the madness. It's plain fun to see the actor give himself so fully to a character after several years of mostly forgettable action movies. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The pairing of Nicolas Cage, one of the world's most out-there actors, with Werner Herzog, cinema's reigning madman-visionary, is a match made in looney-tunes heaven. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Nicolas Cage is out of his mind in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call -- New Orleans. And it's wonderful to see. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Bad Lieutenant doesn't go where you expect, but it has a stubborn, trippy logic. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: A perfect, perfect prank. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Cold-blooded reptiles are lurking everywhere in the slick new noir Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, with snakes, iguanas, gators and especially Nicolas Cage at their slithering and cynical best. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: Herzog, who seems to be drawing on the audience's affection for him as an inspired madman, may not care to tell a story straight anymore. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Even when the movie is not working, it's never less than eye-catching. It's also a perfect setting for Cage's curiously compelling art. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The film is an exasperating bore. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: There can only ever be one Bad Lieutenant: Harvey Keitel. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Cage, who usually goes gonzo with gusto, underplays this monster. That spoils the fun. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: A one-of-a-kind experience that boasts a twice-in-a-lifetime performance from Nicolas Cage. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's perhaps 2/3 of a good movie and 1/3 of material that feels out of place or is derivative. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: No one is better at this kind of performance than Nicolas Cage. He's a fearless actor. He doesn't care if you think he goes over the top. If a film calls for it, he will crawl to the top hand over hand with bleeding fingernails. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Is redemption possible for this bad lieutenant? At one point, he orders that a dead man be shot again because "his soul is still dancing." If you find God in that line, then welcome to your movie heaven. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: There's a valuable lesson to be learned from Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: Two wrongs don't make a right -- it takes at least three. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: It's a rare and precious thing when a filmmaker gets funding for a script that features a coked-out, OxyContined-out, sleep-deprived Cage with a .44 Magnum in his waistband, spewing lines like "Shoot him again ... his soul is still dancing." Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Like the water snake that slithers by during the opening credits or the baby crocodile from whose point of view we observe one roadside scene, this movie is a freaky little swamp thing. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Add director Werner Herzog to the mix, a guy who knows a thing or a hundred about obsessive protagonists, and we're in for quite the ride -- wild and weird and blackly comic. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: It's Cage's best work in years. Read more

Ben Kenigsberg, Time Out: Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: In fusing European experimentalism and Hollywood boldness, Herzog has created a genuine oddity, a furious and unforgettable hybrid which may well prove to be 2010's most purely enjoyable moviegoing experience. Read more

Christopher Orr, The New Republic: Making a bad movie this good is harder than it looks. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Despite his strangely receding hairline, bug-eyed demeanor and hunchback stance, Cage somehow avoids making this police lieutenant a caricature. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: The film is offbeat, silly, disarming and loopy all at the same time, and viewers will decide to ride with that or just give up on it, according to mood and disposition. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Instead of plumbing the depths of spiritual degradation, Herzog's movie is -- largely due to Cage's performance -- almost fun. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Like a jumpy, coke-fueled Pied Piper, Cage takes viewers to the very precipice of depraved self-abasement, while preserving just enough self-conscious humor to keep from tumbling in. Read more