Bad Lieutenant ****

'It feels like we're working for some kind of greater good,' says Xzibit's gang boss to Nicholas Cage's eponymous Bad Lieutenant as they make a business deal, whilst in the background his two henchmen dump a body in the river. But there is no greater good here in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, as Nicholas Cage wades through the moral swamp investigating a murder. Everything is corrupt and sleazy. The fact that this scene is funny hopefully goes a little way to illustrating the blackly comic tone of the whole of Werner Herzog's latest release. He takes a traditional good cop gone bad tale, and breakdances all over it. 

Nicholas Cage's manic performance sees him back to his joyously over the top best, as he somehow makes a seedy, drug addled, gambling, corrupt cop someone that you, perversely, want to succeed. It is impossible to take your eyes off him, apart from when a couple of smiling iguanas share a fantastically insane scene with him. He's a brilliant detective, but the sole driving force of all of his actions is the desperation to score drugs. He would threaten to kill your granny if it would help him.

How did something so bleak and amoral make me leave the cinema in such a good mood?

Completely bonkers, and completely brilliant.