Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

The marvel of Cage's performance is that, somehow, it's all of a piece. That's the marvel of the movie, too. This is one fever dream you'll remember whole.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Bad Lieutenant doesn't go where you expect, but it has a stubborn, trippy logic.

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

It's tempting to forget that Cage is not Terence. That would be unfair though, and diminish the sheer ferocity of his performance.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Mr. Herzog’s film is a pulpy, glorious mess. Its maniacal unpredictability is such a blast that it reminds you just how tidy and dull most crime thrillers are these days.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

A true feat of daring and one of the craziest films of the year.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Frankly, the story isn’t remotely as interesting as Cage. Nothing is. In Ferrara’s movie, Keitel emptied himself out. But there’s a hellion’s joy in Cage’s cop.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

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.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The sparkle is what's been missing in the star's (Cage) recent performances. What's not to love in a movie that transmutes Terence's moral squalor, and the squalid state of post-Katrina New Orleans, into darkly comic gold?

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Herzog deserves the lion's share of the credit for the movie's quality, but Port of Call New Orleans is also a comeback for Cage.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Less like a movie than an interpretive-dance piece, with Cage as its lurching, depressed-satyr star.

Film Threat Jessica Baxter

Nicolas Cage is a joy to watch, and Werner Herzog is a brilliant storyteller.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Surprisingly funny yarn about a drug-addled cop in the Big Easy.

USA Today Claudia Puig

It's a maniacal performance, complete with mad gales of laughter and insane bouts of temper. Cage doesn't go over the top, but he teeters darn close.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A one-of-a-kind experience that boasts a twice-in-a-lifetime performance from Nicolas Cage. The actor has not gone this deep into the abyss since "Vampire's Kiss" (1989).

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

The result is a deliriously watchable and darkly comic portrait of a high-velocity death spiral.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub

It's that constant weirdness, coupled with Nicolas Cage's best performance in pretty much forever, that makes this depraved, sexually charged, over-the-top drama so much fun to watch.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

For filmgoers whose tastes run to pulp genre frissons, auteurist brio and Nicolas Cage at his most luridly over-the-top, Bad Lieutenant scores a kind of freaky-deaky home run.

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

There is a lot of very black humor; and it develops, somewhat surprisingly, into something suggesting a kind of cheerful pessimism.

Slate Dana Stevens

This movie is a freaky little swamp thing.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

This is the best performance Cage has delivered in ages, and Herzog demonstrates, once again, that he is capable of virtually anything.

New York Post Kyle Smith

There can only ever be one Bad Lieutenant: Harvey Keitel. In Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, Nicolas Cage, pretend tough guy (Malibu accent, long floppy coiffure, nervous smile), is more like the Bad Used-Car Salesman.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Comparisons to the original Bad Lieutenant are unnecessary; Port of Call New Orleans can stand - and fall - on its own merits, inconsistent though they may be.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Any resemblance between this Bad Lieutenant and the 1992 Abel Ferrara landmark is purely in the head of the dude who thought up the title.

Time Out New York Keith Uhlich

Cage is not quite Aguirre or Fitzcarraldo in the Big Easy. But his performance hits all the right mythopoetic beats, rising above the thin script and late-night-cable aesthetic.

Premiere Mark Salisbury

Those expecting a return to the depravity and menace of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 notorious original will be disappointed.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Instead of plumbing the depths of spiritual degradation, Herzog's movie is--largely due to Cage's performance--almost fun.

Variety Todd McCarthy

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.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

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.

The New Yorker David Denby

The movie is a mess, but it’s certainly not dull.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

The film is an exasperating bore.