This is the best movie currently on UK release. It's Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend meets The Wire, then speeded up, and with gags. This is what a Quentin Tarantino movie could be like if he wasn't so pompous, derivative, and over-indulged. In post-Katrina New Orleans, Nic Cage is a cop hero who goes off the rails via prescription drugs and then too much coke.
Forget Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. That was all Catholic wallowing in guilt and remorse. This is the Protestant version, fast action, witty one-liners, and redemption. For as our detective hero spirals down into the traditional drug-fuelled personal hell he never loses sight of his core and morally pure objectives. Put away the Bad Guys. Protect your loved ones. Even if he starts hallucinating iguanas on the way.
Forget Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. That was all Catholic wallowing in guilt and remorse. This is the Protestant version, fast action, witty one-liners, and redemption. For as our detective hero spirals down into the traditional drug-fuelled personal hell he never loses sight of his core and morally pure objectives. Put away the Bad Guys. Protect your loved ones. Even if he starts hallucinating iguanas on the way.
Art movie fans wil be tempted to avoid BL:NO-PoC because it stars Nic Cage, sparkles with street talk, and looks like a would-be blockbuster. Popcorn fans may do the same because it's directed by, gosh, Werner Herzog, usually in the Euro-subtitle category at the video store.
But the whole point of this film is that it proves the fallacy of the rigid split between art house and commercial. Like all socially constructed tribal differences, those two gangs have been popping off at each other like, well, the drug gangs in this film.
But the whole point of this film is that it proves the fallacy of the rigid split between art house and commercial. Like all socially constructed tribal differences, those two gangs have been popping off at each other like, well, the drug gangs in this film.
But as Nic goes loopy we see a fine film which operates in an overlapping filmic space. Who better to direct than Herzog? Famed for portrayals of weird and / or obsessed men: Aguirre - Wrath of God, Fitzcarraldo, The Engima of Kaspar Hauser, Nosferatu the Vampyre. BL:NO-PoC is a thoroughly intelligent piece which invites us to reflect on morality, duty, family and the parallels of social and personal breakdown.
Who better to play the eponymous hero than Cage? For whom this film also represents the healing of a his own schizoid career. Since appearing as Nicolas Coppola in wacky High School movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, he has alternated between zany comedies and rom-coms (Raising Arizona, It Could Happen to You, Honeymoon in Vegas), and would-be Arnie / Bruce / Stallone hard-man action flicks (The Rock, Lord of War, Con Air). With attempts at serious drama in between (Leaving Las Vegas, City of Angels).
So the at first sight unlikely pairing of ultimate Hollywood brat Nic and former New German Cinema wunderkind Werner really works. BL:NO-PoC is fast and sassy and an engaging drama, while at the same time being genuinely funny, on the dark side.
Cage is surrounded by a rich and multi-ethnic cast of character actors whose cops and gangsters could be interchanged, and supported by gorgeous pouting Eva Mendes in the strongest performance of her career, also set free from popcorn action like 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Cage is surrounded by a rich and multi-ethnic cast of character actors whose cops and gangsters could be interchanged, and supported by gorgeous pouting Eva Mendes in the strongest performance of her career, also set free from popcorn action like 2 Fast 2 Furious.
Yes, Hollywood can make a seriously good movie. And above all, BL:NO-PoC shows that the Academy must set up a new Oscar, the award for the Best Performance By A Reptile.
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