Reviews - Fantastic Mr. Fox & Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

For many, including his fans, Wes Anderson is a one trick pony. He injects his films with Wilson brothers (Luke or Owen), wry humor, lots of mumbling and rock music (indie or classic), all with a hipster atmosphere. Anderson is now back with his sixth movie, an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel Fantastic Mr. Fox. On the surface, clearly this is something new for the man, though on only a few seconds of watching the film reveal that the guy who has always been so meticulous about his sets, framing and tone has simply skipped the live actors and real world this time around, replacing them with very old-fashioned stop-motion animation. 

The story follows Mr. Fox (voiced by George Clooney), a wily beast who proclaims he “used to steal birds but now I’m newspaper man.” The change came after his ladylove Mrs. Fox (voiced by Meryl Streep) became pregnant and she realizds that a life of constant danger is no place for a little one. Years later, Mr. Fox struggles to shed his old ways, deciding to have one last big outing, beginning with buying a new home just outside of the farms of Boggis, Bunce and Bean, the meanest, most ruthless men in town. His new plan runs into some hiccups and all sorts of “wild animal craziness” ensue. 

From the get-go, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a total Anderson film. Co-written by Noah Baumbach, who he collaborated with on 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), this movie bares most, if not all, the aforementioned Anderson trademarks. Yet, there is a little bit of freshness there for the first time in years. One element of that comes from Dahl’s story, which allows some of Anderson’s naturally eccentric writing to seem more natural. Bill Murray does the voice of Badger, who is of course a badger, but also a real-estate expert with a keen knowledge of explosives. This bizarre mixture might be too much in live-action but here in a film that has the trapping of a family movie, the zaniness is a natural companion. More prominently, the addition of Clooney changes the traditional tone of an Anderson protagonist. Though often men with plans grand schemes like Mr. Fox, characters like Murray’s Steve Zissou Luke Wilson’s Anthony are generally droll people with quite a few shades of melancholy. Sure Mr. Fox is a bit restless at his age of seven fox years, but he is also a man brimming with energy and passion. By having Clooney play him, Mr. Fox doesn’t revert into misery, he is a lively soul that is akin to throwing Danny Ocean into the mix; a fun, perhaps reckless member of the pack who you want to hang out with, even if it might lead to trouble. 

That energy transfers into Anderson’s direction, his most joyous work since Rushmore. Able to finally control every inch of the frame, he goofs around with bizarre scenarios like a rat who stands guard over cider with snapping fingers and a switch-knife as his weapons (played with a delightful southern-accent by Willem Dafoe). A duel between our hero and this jazzy fellow is gorgeously presented, showing off the quiet charms of stop-motion, with its ever-so-slight whiskers flickering in the wind. The jokes aren’t as spot-on as they have been in Anderson’s past, but plenty of them land, and maybe it’s merely the nostalgia talking, but Fantastic Mr. Fox seems like a welcome reinvigoration of one of America’s most enjoyable directors. 

Fantastic Mr. Fox opens wide all across Seattle today. 

There are few things sadder in the film world than seeing a person waste their talent. Since winning an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas in 1996, Nicolas Cage has largely been in countless dull roles, where little seems to be have asked of him besides a few shaky mannerisms, bad hair and a sardonic smile. There have been exceptions, most notably his astounding double-turn as the Kaufman twins in 2002’s Adaptation, but for every one of those there are two National Treasure pictures. With the help of master filmmaker Werner Herzog, there is another one in the positive column for Cage with Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.

A remake/sequel to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 picture Bad Lieutenant, Herzog and screenwriter William M. Finkelstein unleash Cage at his strangest as Terence McDonagh, a New Orleans police officer with a bad back, a prostitute girlfriend named Frankie (Eva Mendes) and a major drug habit. McDonagh isn’t a crooked cop in the usual ways. He isn’t sneaking cash for himself after busting a robbery or covering up a friend’s murder. McDonagh wants to save the day and solve the case; if some high-stakes gambling and crack can be done simultaneously, all the better. As a murder mystery, well, there is little to be found in Herzog’s film. Yes, Cage’s character is out to protect a teenage witness and find who killed five Senegalese immigrants, but Lieutenant isn’t really interested in developing these elements. In fact, the film only falters when progressing the story becomes a necessity. The rest of the time is pure Cage-y mania. 

It should be no surprise that it would take someone like Herzog to shake Cage out of his recent doldrom. Where many directors might to try to rid Cage of his various acting tics (frequent blinks, twitchiness), Herzog pushes them into the forefront. Cage’s McDonagh is all frayed edges, whether interrogating a suspect or hallucinating about a pair of iguanas. He simmers with paranoia and his conversations take one of two speeds; slow and dazed or anxiously rapid, as if every word must come out within seconds or else there would be hell to pay. It is ridiculous stuff but in the right type of movie with the right kind of atmosphere, such a performance is mesmerizing. 

Of course, none of this would then work without Herzog, who has built a career on obsessives and crazies, from the real (Grizzly Man) to the fictional (Aguirre: The Wrath of God). His New Orleans bubbles to the surface, still aching from Hurricane Katrina, though the filmmaker never uses the horrific event as a prop like last year’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. With a score by Mark Isham that infuses dirty brass like a filthy syringe, Herzog has made a city that revels in whatever decadence it can find, where even the richest little white girl can get herself into trouble, though of course, even she isn’t as innocent as she projects. Herzog happily has the unreal take center stage, letting oddities and the aforementioned hallucination enjoy their time on screen. With a fantastic ensemble that includes Val Kilmer, Jennifer Coolidge, Michael Shannon and an excitable Brad Dourif, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a sinful pleasure. 

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans opens at the Landmark Metro Cinema and Uptown Cinema today.