Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans
Werner Herzog Directs Nicolas in Offbeat Remake
Oct 11, 2009
In the 1987 released film Raising Arizona he played the role of H.I McDonnough, a repeat offender that marries the police officer who kept arresting him. He portrayed the character with a strange quality that was irritable yet like-able at the same time. In Wild at Heart he was a romantic fool who would go to any lengths to be with the girl he loves. The character was very one dimensional but Cage bought life into the role by portraying the character Sailor Ripley as someone who came straight out of a rock 'n' roll love song.
Nicolas Cage Won the Academy Award in the Best Actor Category for Leaving Las Vegas
He played many more mad characters, such as Ronnie Cammareri in the romantic comedy about an Italian family in Moonstruck. The scene where he describes to Cher about how he lost his hand is one of the most memorable comic scenes from the eighties. Later in 1995 he gave a Oscar winning performance as Ben Sanderson in Leaving Las Vegas. Ben Sanderson is an alcoholic, Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking. He goes to Las Vegas with the intention to drink himself to death. With his sincere performance Nicolas Cage managed to give as an insight into the chaotic nature of an alcoholics mind.
After Leaving Las Vegas Cage became one of the most respected and in-demand actors in Hollywood. With this came the blockbusters; The Rock, Face Off and 8mm. It seemed Nicolas Cage could do no wrong, however then came The Family Man and The Weather Man, both were box office failures, during this period he was also seen in Gone in 60 seconds, Windtalkers and Captain Corelli's Mandolin. His performances in all these films were damned by the critics.
With the film Adaptation and to some extent Matchstick Men it was thought Nicolas Cage had made a comeback. Unfortunately that didn't last, Cage gave a horrendous performance in the horror Wicker Man. instead of being scared, the audience walked out of the cinema laughing at the absurd plot and the lines uttered by Cage's character. Recently he was seen in Next, the two National Treasure films and Bangkok Dangerous, In these films he went back to playing crazy, out there characters but the weak scripts manged to only show him as caricature of himself, what made him like-able in the past had now become annoying.
Nicolas Cage Makes a Comeback as Bad Lieutenant
Recently Nicholas Cage took a pay cut to play Lieutenant Terence Macdonagh in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The film set in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is directed by Werner Herzog. It is full of twists and turns with hints of the crazy dark humor that was found in Cage's eighties films. Nicolas Cage gives his most involved performance since Leaving Las Vegas, the scene where he confronts a lady and her hairdresser is sure to stay in the viewers mind for sometime.
Looks like somewhere in there Nicolas Cage still has some really good work left in him. With the right director and and a good script it seems he can still deliver.
