Director: Werner Herzog
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Xzibit, Val Kilmer
My rating system is hardly set in stone, but this is my general criteria.
5 Stars - A perfect movie that is original or high concept
4 1/2 stars - A movie with minor flaws in conception or execution
4 stars - A movie that does what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.
3 1/2 stars - A movie that does some of what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.
I am not going to proceed past 3 1/2 stars since the above is just a setup so I can explain why I gave BL: PC-NO a quarter star. I haven't seen Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, but I have seen enough clips of it on youtube to understand the premise, he is a Lieutenant and he is Bad. My limited understanding of the original, my familiarity with Herzog/Kinski movies and my borderline expertise in the works of Nic Cage made me excited for this movie as soon as I saw a trailer for it. That was before I knew the movie would include Val Kilmer, Michael Shannon, Xzibit and other character actors who successfully counter balance or ratchet up Cage's insanity throughout the movie. If you want to see Nic Cage doing degenerate things that include taking a bump of cocaine while driving a 13 year old murder witness to a casino in Biloxi in the same movie you see Herzog pontificating via iguana cam this movie is for you.
BL: PC-NO other strength is a really strong sense of place. Most movies are set in LA or NYC or LA trying to be another city or some other city trying to be NYC. It is very nice that BL:PC-NO is actually shot in post-Katrina New Orleans. Herzog constantly reminds of us that via shots of the perpetually grey, rundown New Orleans skyline. He also uses the devastation to New Orleans thematically to parallel Cage's characters downward spiral and to showcase the general desperation motivating all of the characters. It also helps explain how Cage can get away with stealing so much contraband from police evidence without any of the higher ups noticing.
For a movie that stars a wired Nic Cage who is constantly dialed up to 11, Herzog still finds time to do a lot of pontificating that doesn't quite work, unless you are familiar enough with his work to find his half-baked existential philosophy charming, which I do. So this is a movie that "that does some of what it sets out to do, but has some flaws.", but also a movie that "does exactly what I hoped it would, but has some flaws" allowing me to put it safely in 3.75 star territory, at least i don't need to design a 3/4 full star graphic.
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