WARNING: MILD TO HEAVY SPOILERS
So, here we are. I promised I'd do it, and here it is. Two crazy cops hit the screens in the last month, both are considered a little controversial, and both have attracted some acclaim. This here is the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny, and yes, I know that name is trademarked but it's not like I care. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is about the bliss of evil (so claims director Werner Herzog) and The Killer Inside Me is about its darkness. So, here we go...
Bad Boys, Bad Boys
I'm not trying to define stories and characters as to how evil or kick-ass they are, but mostly just as how well they are presented. Bad Lieutenant is a roller-coaster of madness and redemption, in which Lt. Terence McDonagh (played by Cage, obviously) sustains an injury in the line of duty -a rare moment of generosity to a prisoner - and ends up hooked on painkillers, picking up other substances along the way. He is assigned to investigate a massacre of an African family, and does some rather questionable things as he ends up becoming involved with Drug Lord Big Fate (Xzibit). The film is batshit insane, but also quite hilarious, mostly because of the sheer mania of Cage's performance which is perhaps his best in quite some time. Hang-dog, permanently tired and capable of quite alarming immorality, McDonagh is a brilliant character because despite the napalm going off behind his eyes, he has a flimsy grasp of 'the right thing'. However, he is a very bad boy indeed. Whether it involve pulling over some rich kids to steal their dope and casually roger one rich boy's girlfriend or doing something quite extraordinarily nasty to a little old lady, McDonagh is clearly not averse to the odd vice here and there. The story does meander and some details get lost, but this is clearly secondary material. This is the tale of Terence McDonagh and the remote possibility he might find the light.
The same cannot be said of Lou Ford (Casey Affleck). While McDonagh is crazed, Lou is actually psychotic. The Killer Inside Me is a decidedly darker affair, set in 1960s Texas, and plays more like a small-town American Psycho than an actual cop thriller. In this film, Lou Ford is a seemingly mild mannered and charming cop in a peaceful Texan town, but is actually a sadomasochist with a penchant for casual murder and violence. After committing a horrendous crime, naturally his sins start to catch up with him and it all winds up to an explosive climax. Unlike American Psycho, there is no dark humour to relieve proceedings. Lou Ford is decidedly twisted, and compared to McDonagh, is utterly beyond redemption. As a result, the film rather revels in his deeds, mostly the pummelling of his love interests. Now, I am aware that American Psycho liked the gory details too, but there was this constant understanding he was a totally narcisisstic madman who was underminded by his fantasies and his misogyny. The main issue I have with Lou is that the film apologises for his cold-blooded tendencies by explaining his childhood, but here's the thing, he never seems to feel any kind of remorse or conflict over what he does and so the two things seem utterly unconnected. His misogyny is almost enjoyed by the camera rather than chastised., judging by the almost excruciating detail during his sadomasochistic sex with his 'ladies'. He gets what he wants and seems to rarely suffer the consequences.
Despite her heavy presence in the advertising, this woman is actually barely in it. Friends & Enemies
Perhaps the reason The Killer Inside Me starts to fall behind Bad Lieutenant is because the supporting cast for Bad Lieutenant is considerably superior. My bias is already obvious, but I will explain why. Bad Lieutenant's cast is often incidental, yes, but they convince. Eva Mendes is that archetype I am starting to loathe in films ('the prostitute he loves' character), but even she has a character arc. Starting as a fairly standard girl-on-the-arm-with-an-addiction character, she blossoms and has her own path to redemption, an act which actually inspires Cage's own character to become a better person. By contrast, the girls in Killer Inside Me are little more than eye candy for the camera - they remain totally ignorant of Lou's actions, and while this isn't necessarily a bad thing, they get seven shades beaten out of them and one even forgives him despite his treatment of her. There's an uncomfortable romanticism to the film regarding the girls' relationships with him. The Killer Inside Me does possess a rich support cast with Elias Koteas, Ned Beatty and Bill Pullman, but they're all rather underused. Bad Lieutenant also has Val Kilmer, who is just...Val Kilmer. I'm not going to say his character Stevie has any massive relevance to the plot, but seriously, the guy's a fucking hoot to have around. Antagonists are actually fairly absent from both films. Bad Lieutenant has its gangster characters, but for most part, 'bad guys' in the film Bad Lieutenant is a term that coud be ascribed to all the people McDonagh pisses off. This would mean about eighty percent of the people he meets in the film. The opposite number to Lou Ford is Simon Baker's character Howard Hendricks, the man who first starts calling bullshit on Lou's charade. Perhaps it is the irregular presence of Hendricks that makes the noose around Lou feel so slack for so long, and to be honest it never really tightens as it does. One day he's asking friendly questions, the next he accuses Lou as if he's always known. A little tension would have been nice.
The Garden of Good & Evil
If Killer Inside Me was about a killer trying to get away with it, but his sins finding him out, it would maybe have made for a better film. I think The Killer Inside Me's main problem is that it doesn't know what it is. Bad Lieutenant is quite clearly the story of Terence McDonagh, and playing it as a blackly crazed comedy suits it well. I think the mandate was to create a dark film about a man with no remorse with his evil, and given how repugnantly well Casey Affleck plays him, this is fairly clear. There is no happy ending promised, no hope for anyone. The plot again is secondary to the tale of Lou Ford, but the film simply doesn't give enough of an insight into the man. He's a cold blooded killer because his stepmother was a pervert? Well...I need more than this to go on. Both films have their own moral compass that lilts wildly, but Bad Lieutenant's apology for its anti-hero feels more succinct I succinct.
This is one of the more odd points in the film. It involves a spoon. Don't email me to ask why.
Look at the big picture.
Visually, both films are cracking. What Bad Lieutenant lacks in swish camerawork, it more than makes up for with strange and striking imagery; the most striking of which are the appearances of various reptiles throughout the film, giving the film that unstoppable, drug-like surreality. The Killer Inside Me has a scratchy, grindhouse quality to it that is far more subtle, appropriate given the rather more stately plot progression. Music again is good, Bad Lieutenant's is slightly crazed and dark, The Killer Inside Me is stacked to the roof with country hits from the 60s. I'm just filling out my final 'numbers-by-numbers' points here because I'm coming up to my final opinion.
Here's the thing; Bad Lieutenant is the better film. The Killer Inside Me is perhaps a rather more 'arthouse' film, but it's mostly Killer Inside Me's slightly dodgy politics that leave me looking at it in a less favourable light. Bad Lieutenant indeed simulates McDonagh's mindset well, but I found it curiously hard to get inside the head of Lou Ford from The Killer Inside Me. What makes him tick? What motivates his madness? It is relatively unexplored, to the point where I was fairly desperate to see Lou Ford finally get caught. Both are strongly made, and while Lou Ford is the nastier of the two quite clearly, I sort of understood McDonagh rather better. So yes, in the battle of the bad cops, I'm afraid Nicolas Cage rather wins. To the break of daaaawwn, baby....
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