| 'Bad Lieutenant' returns aE& wildness intact
Found: Wed Nov 18 00:02:48 2009 PST
Source: Arab Times (Kuwait)
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'Bad Lieutenant' returns aE& wildness intact Arab Times :: 'Bad Lieutenant' returns wildness intact
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'Bad Lieutenant' returns wildness intact
It's post-Katrina New Orleans and there are snakes in the water -- none bigger than Terence McDonagh, an exceptionally corrupt detective, who slinks through town snorting coke, smoking heroin, harassing women and brandishing a .44 Magnum stuffed in the front of his pants. When a security guard finds McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) behind the pharmacist counter rooting around for his Vicodin prescription because he's tired of waiting, the guard is reasonably skeptical when McDonagh says he's a cop. McDonagh, gangly in a gray suit, thrusts his pelvis out, his gun flapping: "What's that look like?"
McDonagh is doing what might be called "a huckuva job." Despite his behavior (he also steals evidence and threatens the life of old lady), he's considered the department's finest detective and he'll be honored twice before the film is done.
'Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans' is one of the most curious films to arrive in a long time. It's a kind of remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992 cult classic "Bad Lieutenant," which was set in New York and starred Harvey Keitel in a similar role.
Director Werner Herzog has insisted this is not a remake, though much of the story mimics the original: Our antihero still has a gambling problem with debts mounting; he's still trying to solve a particularly heinous crime (in this case, the drug dealing-motivated slaughter of a family); and redemption might still come for him.
The original "Bad Lieutenant" was sensational, wild and unpredictable. It's exactly what one looks for in pulpy noir, and it contained a truly great performance from Keitel, vulnerable and weighed by Catholic guilt despite his coked-up animalism.
Such films aren't meant to be remade -- the very idea is incongruent to their wildness.
Herzog, though a self-described madman himself, also wouldn't seem right. Gritty, stylistic sensationalism is Ferrara's stock in trade, whereas Herzog's long and justly acclaimed career ("Fitzcarraldo," "Grizzly Man") has been defined by raw naturalism.
But Herzog, working from a screenplay by William Finkelstein, has summoned the spirit of the original "Bad Lieutenant" while making something fresh and gloriously insane. In one pivotal scene, McDonagh suddenly asks the very Herzogian question: "Do fish have dreams?"
Where Ferrara placed Catholicism, Herzog has turned to his god: Nature. Throughout Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant" are thoroughly strange, shaky interludes shot from the perspective of various lizards. The scenes play like drug-induced hallucinations: a crocodile watches from the roadside, iguanas join a stakeout.
The redemption-minded sports flick 'The Blind Side' serves its inspiration straight-up with no twist.
Writer-director John Lee Hancock wisely lets the true story of Michael Oher -- the African-American teen who found a home and, eventually, football stardom, after being adopted by a wealthy Memphis family -- speak for itself.
That direct focus delivers a feel-good crowd-pleaser, but it also drains the film of the kind of subtle nuances that might have separated it from other Hollywood Hallmark-like efforts, including Hancock's own "The Rookie."
As chronicled in "Moneyball" author Michael Lewis' finely reported book, "The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game," Oher spent his first 16 years living in a shell. When he improbably landed at Memphis' Briarcrest Christian School, he had an IQ of 80 and an inability to cope with a mere conversation. His prospects looked dim until he was taken in by Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy.
For everything he lacked in life (family, food, a place to sleep), Oher had been blessed with the rare blend of size, strength and quickness sought by football coaches for the valuable left tackle position. That spot on the offensive line protects a right-handed quarterback from hits he can't see coming. If Oher could somehow develop his raw talent into practiced technique, he could win a college scholarship and, possibly, a professional football career.
Transformation
"The Blind Side" dutifully chronicles the transformation of Oher (played by newcomer Quinton Aaron with the proper less-is-more approach) from blank slate to a fully formed young man, emphasizing Leigh Ann (Sandra Bullock) at the expense of Sean (Tim McGraw). (The book notes Sean's equally valuable contributions.) Bullock brings her trademarked spunkiness to the mother hen role, delivering an iron-willed woman who looks past appearances to do the right thing.
"You are changing that boy's life," notes one of Leigh Anne's condescending ladies-who-lunch pals.
"No," Leigh Anne replies. "He's changing mine."
That solemn rebuke captures the spirit of the movie in a nutshell, though, strangely, we never see any actual change in Bullock's indomitable Memphis mama from the beginning of the movie to the end.
Husband Sean, consigned to couch duty for most of the film (when he isn't commenting on how plucky his wife is), tells Oher that Leigh Ann is an "onion," but Hancock doesn't go beyond peeling the first layer.
The movie does address allegations that the Tuohys took an interest in Oher so they could steer the prodigy to Ole Miss, their beloved alma mater. That inclusion seems designed more to give the leisurely film some much-needed tension than actually probe the issue, since the obstacles facing Oher rarely feel threatening in the film.
As was the case with "The Rookie," Hancock aims to present a reality that comforts and inspires, populated by people actively living their beliefs. Why did the Tuohys take in Oher? Without definitively answering that question, the film poses one of its own: Why don't more people follow their lead?
"The Blind Side," a Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for one scene involving brief violence, drug and sexual references. Running time: 128 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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