20 greatest works of fiction about New Orleans

20. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

A mid-2000s movie remake? A relatively late career Nicolas Cage? Possibly one of the clunkiest film titles to stumble its way across the screen? Sure, it sounds like a recipe for one big, streaming disaster. Honestly, it should have been. But it turns out that Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is somehow better than all that.

Okay, it’s not as if this movie is on par with Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Odyssey. People probably aren’t going to be studying this one in introductory film classes for the next few generations. Still, Bad Lieutenant, directed by none other than Werner Herzog, isn’t the worst way to spend a couple of hours. In fact, Cage seemed to pull it together and put more effort into this role than he did for other of his film roles around the time.

Nicolas Cage and New Orleans

Plus, it’s got a great, big dose of New Orleans at its center. Cage’s character travels throughout the city, interacting with its residents and the landscape of New Orleans itself. It’s also worth mentioning that Cage briefly owned the reputedly haunted LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans right before the film’s release.

This 2009 film is tangentially related to the 1992 neo-noir, also named Bad Lieutenant, directed by Abel Ferrara. However, it’s not exactly a remake or a sequel. Rather, it’s more thematically related. Ferrara actually became incensed over the relationship, though Werner Herzog flatly stated that he had no idea who Ferrara was and hadn’t seen any of his films. Ouch.

In the plot, the titular bad lieutenant is Terence McDonagh (Cage). He’s addicted to painkillers after an on-the-job incident. He’s also dealing with a highly dysfunctional family, including parents and a girlfriend with addictions; New Orleans gangsters; and increasingly suspicious fellow police officers. Still, McDonagh manages to solve a murder and bring a kind of justice to the perpetrators. It makes for surprisingly good viewing.