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For anyone who has written off Nicolas Cage as the debt-saddled has-been who squandered the gifts so apparent in Leaving Las Vegas and Raising Arizona on the National Treasure franchise and a million other crappy roles, Bad Lieutenant is here to slap you upside the head. Cage has never been more unhinged, more volatile, and more self-aware than as the titular escort-screwing, crack-smoking, law-bending bad cop, Terence McDonagh. The police drama that director Werner Herzog builds around Cage's so-over-the-top-as-to-be-sincere performance is at turns harrowing and sublimely goofy. But for all its strange asides (Herzog has a thing for iguanas) and brilliant cameos (Fairuza Balk and Jennifer Coolidge, for starters), Bad Lieutenant truly belongs to Cage. Welcome back, Nic.

– Matt Sussman