Debuting in 27 theaters, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans took in a so-so $257,000, or an average $9,500 per theater. The film received mostly solid notices -- particularly for its star, Nicolas Cage. "He's a fearless actor," wrote Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. "He doesn't care if you think he goes over the top. If a film calls for it, he will crawl to the top hand over hand with bleeding fingernails." In her assessment, Claudia Puig of USA Today wrote, "It's a maniacal performance, complete with mad gales of laughter and insane bouts of temper. Cage doesn't go over the top, but he teeters darn close." Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune observed that the film presents Cage "at his finest." A.O. Scott in the New York Times commented that Cage's performance "requires adjectives as yet uncoined, typed with both the caps-lock key and the italics button engaged." As for the film itself, Scott said that it "is no masterpiece, but it is undoubtedly the work of a master," In this case, the veteran director Werner Herzog. Rick Groen in the Toronto Globe and Mail wrote that Herzog gives his audience "quite the ride -- wild and weird and blackly comic." In related news, it was announced today (Monday) that Herzog will preside as head of the jury at next year's Berlin Film Festival.
23/11/2009
