At the Movies With Peter Travers: Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Its Thanksgiving weekend, and theres plenty of turkeys in theaters. Thankfully, Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers is here to tell you what to see and what to definitely avoid this four-day weekend. For instance, why see 2012 or New Moon when you can instead opt for the latest adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel, The Road starring Viggo Mortensen? Why see Old Dogs starring
Robin Williams and John Travolta or the silly swordplay in Ninja Assassin when you could instead save your money and spend it on Black Friday?

There is one movie thats out this week that Travers recommends, a winning wishbone so to speak and a movie so crazy, its almost endearing, called Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Directed by oddball auteur Werner Herzog and featuring one of the craziest, zaniest performances of Nicolas Cages crazy, zany career, like the films title suggests, Bad Lieutenant is about a police officer in the Big Easy whos on the wrong side of the law.

He abuses every drug known to man, has sex with prostitutes while forcing their criminal boyfriends to watch and commits several other felonies before his shift is through. Throw in a hallucination of an iguana that Cage frequently engages in conversations with and you have what Travers lovingly calls a bugfuck of a movie.

Cage has done bugfuck before, in Vampires Kiss and Face-Off and the unintentionally hilarious Wicker Man remake, but this is Cage in his weirdest and strangely riveting role yet. Plus, his partner-in-crime is 50 Cents new BFF Val Kilmer, so you know you have a recipe for insanity. Bad Lieutenant is a remake of the Harvey Keitel film of the same name, but a remake in name only. That 1992 film was a drama, this film isits essentially just Cage going nuts. This Thanksgiving, go nuts with him.

Read this weeks reviews:
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
The Road
Me and Orson Welles
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
2012

Read all of Peter Travers movie reviews here.