Thanks to the reader that passed this along and aptly writes that this “trailer” looks like it’s a sales promo (maybe from the Cannes or Berlin market?) and not an actual trailer.
Marked by a chugging harmonica, this promo of Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans” re-imagining (not a remake!) starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer and rapper Xzibit, does not look like a Werner Herzog movie at all. In fact, it looks like another ridiculous serio-comic Nicolas Cage flick and all of the absurdism that generally entails.
The plot generally looks the same: a decorated cop loses his shit, and both Herzog and Cage have called it an existential-like crime noir, but Jesus, it’s a… cop comedy? Abel Ferrara must be pulling a Yosemite Sam-style fume right now. Fans of the version of the film that Harvey Keitel starred in will be at least be happy to see Cage’s character stick a gun in an innocent ladies face, snort myriad rails and flirt with drug-fueled insanity (“you don’t have a lucky crackpipe?” he asks), hook up with a stripper and drop more than a few f-bombs. Around the 1:16 mark, the “trailer” goes off the rails a little bit more with a little psychedelic moment and… well the whole thing just looks like a made-for-TV parody of the original “Bad Lieutenant.”
“Shoot ’em again,” Cage says to his drug buddies as someone does a breakdancing move. “His soul is still dancing,” he says then bursting into maniacal laughter. As our reader notes, the 40-second mark spot where Cage pulls the Klaus Kinski “walk into frame and turn to camera” move is just pricelessly ludicrous.
This thing was posted back at the end of April and the end of the promo says, “now in post-production.” Will we see it later this year? God, someone has to put this out, right? Oh, Herzog, what have ye done?