Crystal Meth Tweakers (Spoilers ahead):

I’m told I missed something in Werner Herzog’s rendition of "The Bad Lieutenant (2009)". A friend said that all of his other films have quirky, weirdly humorous parts that seem out of place but aren’t, and I’m willing to accept that. I was certainly entertained by this film and never once did I find myself dozing off or wondering what was going on in the other parts of the theater. In that sense, the film is an achievement. But I’m just not sure how great of a film it is otherwise; is it fine cinema or just pulp?

The primary issue with this film is that the conflict seems to be detached and insignificant; it comes into play only in the last ten minutes (which are phenomenal). This is because everything comes so easily to Nicolas Cage’s character, Terence McDonagh. That is not to say that no problems arise during the course of the film. McDonagh is plagued with back pain that causes him to seek out prescription and illegal drugs, both of which he abuses. He’s also forced to deal with an alcoholic father and a prostitute girlfriend who gets him in debt with some scumbags. To top it all off, he’s a raging gambling addict who cannot control himself, feeling sure that his next big win is one game away despite his horrible track record. For a normally functioning human being, this might seem like a downward spiral, but McDonagh seems completely unaffected by all of it. He remains calm and scheming throughout, and maybe that’s what Herzog’s message is: the junkie’s only real concern is his next score, and if everything falls to pieces around him, then so be it. Still – I’m not sure, in a cinematic sense – if I buy into this. By making any real conflict unimportant, Herzog fails to create a sense of tension and drama. In other films about junkies, like Danny Boyle’s masterpiece, "Trainspotting (1996)", there absolutely is a sense of fear and dread; we sympathize with the protagonist and cringe when he’s in the grips of his withdrawal-induced hallucinations. However, with Bad Lieutenant, there’s never a point where things don’t seem like they’re going to work out. It’s as if we’re watching an addict’s humorous and absurd dance with indifference, but the picture is out of focus. We can’t see whom we are watching and so we don’t know why we should care. In the end, it all works out just as McDonagh had apparently planned; every character with whom he is even remotely at odds comes crawling at his feet, rejoicing over the wonderful things he has done.

On the last few minutes: Flawed as the film which precedes them may be, the last two scenes of this film, which show us McDonagh before a table of cocaine and then at an aquarium, are brilliant. Pressed against a tank filled with sharks, he laughs at himself and the film goes black; it’s all some sort of sick, inescapable joke to the lieutenant. These last two scenes are the heart of the conflict – we see that Terrence will never change and that’s all there is to it. It’s tragic here but nowhere else – and if so, only in retrospect.

Verdict: Almost Stoked. The more I think about it, the more I liked this movie. I would watch it again if only because I feel that there are some things I probably missed as my friend has suggested. What I don’t need to see again is the lingering and drawn out shots of the different reptiles with which McDonagh shares a tweaked-out connection.