If there were a film that shouldn't work it's "Bad Lieutenant — Port of Call: New Orleans."

And it's not just because the movie features the word "bad" in its title. After all, this film is a "re-imagining" of an inexplicably popular 1992 thriller that starred Harvey Keitel.

Also, it comes from Werner Herzog, a veteran filmmaker who's been concentrating more on making documentaries ("Grizzly Man" and "Encounters at the End of the World") than with making narrative films like this thriller.

Worse still, the movie pairs him with Nicolas Cage, an actor who hasn't exactly set the world on fire with his performances of late.

Yet Cage seems reinvigorated here, playing a character named Terence McDonagh (as was Keitel's in the earlier film).

The New Orleans police detective has just been promoted to the rank of lieutenant, since he saved a prisoner from drowning in his cell during Hurricane Katrina.

Unfortunately, Terence also suffered a debilitating back injury during the rescue and is now addicted to painkillers and even-stronger drugs.

But he's managed to keep most of that — and some of his more sordid activities — from his superiors. They've assigned him to a high-profile case, （英文影评）one involving the killings of five Senegalese immigrants.

The suspect is Big Fate (rapper-turned-actor Xzibit), a drug lord who's been known to be "territorial" — or downright murderous — when it comes to his rivals.

Again, this shouldn't work at all, much less this well. Cage's increasingly crazed and manic performance is very watchable.

Speaking of crazed, there are some very curious stylistic and other filmmaking choices on display here. (That includes a brief sequence that was apparently shot from the perspective of — and was really shot on the back of — an alligator.)