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Movie Review for The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans 
 
This is a very strange crime drama, starring Nicholas Cage (Next) as Detective 
Terence McDonagh, investigating the murder of a Senegalese family during 
Hurricane Katrina.

We meet Terence and his side kick Stevie Pruit played by Val Kilmer (Tombstone) 
in a prison where a convict is pleading with them to help him get out of the 
flooding jail he is trapped in, from their ridicule of the plight of the 
convict, we realise Terence and Stevie are not exactly upright holders of the 
law. Terence going against his behaviour so far, and facing ruin of his 
expensive undergarments jumps into the filthy water in what we assume is to 
save the drowning convict, the scene cuts to Terence at the doctor's where he 
is told he must be on medication from now on, for injuring his back, Terence 
asks if he will be on medication for ever, the doctor's facial expressions 
gives the game away, even though he says there are great advances being made in 
dealing with such conditions, you realise Terence will have to be on medication 
for the rest of his life for his bad back; and indeed throughout the rest of 
the movie he walks with an obvious painful haunch.

It turns out Terence is not only hooked on the prescription medication he is 
taking for his bad back, but also hooked on a lot more harder drugs, which he 
gets from anywhere he can, first by stopping party goers and going through 
their belongings to find any narcotics, and from his girlfriend who is also a 
prostitute Frankie Donnenfeld, played by Eva Mendes (Hitch).

Despite his indiscretions, Terence doesn't stop being a policeman, and he seems 
to make amends for his obvious imperfections, by following through with 
whatever task he has been laden with as an upholder of the law, in this case to 
find and bring to book the murderer of the Senegalese family.

To aide him bring the main suspect Big Fate (played by Xzibit) to book, he has 
found a witness Daryl, played by Denzel Whitaker (Forrest Whitaker's son, and 
Carter in Brothers and Sisters), who he has to protect until the case goes to 
trial. Unfortunately things are not so straight forward.  Frankie has been 
ripped off by a customer until Terence using his power and reputation as a 
police officer to get the customer to pay Frankie. It turns out the customer is 
connected to the mob and they are set to extract the amount he paid as well as 
"interest", or else Frankie and Terence would be in a heap of trouble.

Added to this, things are not going so well for Frankie, as his behaviour has 
landed him into being scrutinized by Internal Affairs, which is not helped with 
his drug addiction.

It is a strange tale of crime and addiction from the point of view of one whose 
job is to uphold the law, and the question of our protagonist being able to 
redeem himself seeing he is as criminal as the criminals he chases, is what 
holds the suspense together.

 
 Mr D Stevens is a reviewer at http://moviereviews.noskram.com/  <strong>Movie 
reviews</strong> 
 Keywords: Movie Reviews, film reviews, film review, movies, films, Movie 
Review, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, Nicholas Cage, Eva 
Mendes, Val Kilmer, Xzibit, Denzel Whitaker, crime, thriller, drama, rogue cop, 
New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, narcotics, drugs 
 Article contains 514 words

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