Drafthouse Films has send us over stills for the upcoming documentary "The Act of Killing". The film is being executive produced acclaimed documentary directors Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, Fast Cheap & Out of Conrol) and Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams). "The Act of Killing" hits theaters in limited release on July 19th.

For more information on this film, you can visit the film's official website at: http://www.actofkilling.com

Plot Synopsis:

In this chilling and inventive documentary, executive produced by Errol Morris (The Fog Of War) and Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man), the filmmakers examine a country where death squad leaders are celebrated as heroes, challenging them to reenact their real-life mass killings in the style of the American movies they love. The hallucinatory result is a cinematic fever dream, an unsettling journey deep into the imaginations of mass murderers and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they inhabit. Shaking audiences at the 2012 Toronto and Telluride Film Festivals, The Act of Killing is an unprecedented film and, according to the Los Angeles Times, "could well change how you view the documentary form.

Werner Herzog brings us yet another fascinating documentary with “Cave Of Forgotten Dreams” in which he and several others get to explore the Chauvet cave located in Southern France. Inside are some of the oldest drawings made by humans which have been amazingly preserved over tens of thousands of years. Seeing this documentary is a treat because this cave has been closed off to the general public to protect it from harm, and we would not have been able to see what’s inside otherwise.

The fact that he got permission to film inside the cave from the French minister of culture is a miracle. Upon entering, Werner narrates the obstacles he and his four men crew have to deal with. They cannot touch the walls, they are confined to a two foot wide metal walkway, the crew could only use battery powered equipment, and they could only use lighting equipment that did not give off excessive heat. Furthermore, due to the near-toxic levels of radon and carbon dioxide, no one could stay inside the cave for more than four hours at a time.

Taking all that into account, you’d think it would be impractical to film in there at all, especially for a perfectionist of a director. But Werner Herzog is not a filmmaker who is easily deterred, and he makes do with what he has to work with. Along with his crew, he takes on some technical duties like handling a boom mike and lighting. Because of the restricted access they had, many shots have the crew members visible as there was no way to shoot certain scenes without them in the way.

You’re with the crew every step of the way, and you feel like a child holding on to your mother’s hand while visiting a shop with shiny fragile items on display. You want to get up close, but your mother is quick to sternly remind you:

“You can look, but you cannot touch!”

The visuals Herzog and company capture are extraordinary. The drawings of bulls, horses, tigers, bears, and other animals are quite vivid in their renderings, and you wonder what the people who drew them were thinking. The fact that we may never really know what was going through their minds never deters Herzog from asking questions that remain on our minds after the lights in the theatre come up.

There are also some incredible images of stalactites formed over thousands of years and which have gained a beauty not easily manufactured. It reminded me of the underwater scenes in another Herzog documentary, “Encounters At The End Of The World,” in what amazing landscapes can be found on planet Earth. Some of these icy landmarks even have a sparkle to them which makes them all the more wondrous. Heck, seeing them brought back memories of when I did a science experiment in the 3rd grade of creating stalactites in class. Suffice to say, mine were never as impressive as the ones that appear here onscreen.

There are numerous interviews with the scientists involved, and it amazed me just how much we can tell of the first humans thanks to advancements in science. For these people, it’s’ a never ending journey as they work to discover more than what can be seen with the naked eye. Their vast experience has allowed them to see the most specific details of the drawings and of how they originated. You can question what they find, but they are more than persuasive in their examinations.

I was hoping, like in “Encounters At The End Of The World,” that Werner would spend more time learning about the personalities of the archaeologists and of their life outside of work. Sure enough, he does get one man to admit he was a clown before he got interested in archeology, and it makes for one of the movie’s most entertaining moments. None of the others however get the same kind of examination. I guess since these particular people were not living in one of the most isolated places on Earth, Herzog didn’t feel the need to question them as heavily since his main focus was on the cave itself.

“Cave Of Forgotten Dreams” was filmed in 3D, but I was only able to see it in 2D. I wondered if that was an advantage or a disadvantage. Granted, I have had a major disdain for 3D recently as it makes the images on the screen darker than they should be. Still, it would have been interesting to check this one out with the extra dimension.

Viewing it in 2D however made me want to reach out and touch the screen. You do feel like you are moving along with the camera at times, and perhaps seeing this documentary in digital format made me feel that the cave walls were literally right in front of me. Regardless of what format you end up seeing this in, it will be quite the experience.

“Cave Of Forgotten Dreams” is not as enveloping a documentary as the brilliant “Grizzly Man” or the previously mentioned “Encounters At The End Of The World.” At times, the music by Ernst Reijseger is a bit overbearing, and there’s a scene in particular where the use of silence would have perfect. Still, there is much to admire about this Werner Herzog documentary, and we should be thankful he got whatever images he was able to get on film. It is highly unlikely we would have seen these early drawings otherwise, and they make for a fascinating portrait of where humans began.

I also have to say that the one drawing of the four horses side by side remind me of the apocalyptic four horsemen, and I don’t mean the song by Metallica.

* * * ½ out of * * * *

Alright, let’s get this out of the way like hundreds of reviews before this one and hundreds after it; Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is not a remake of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film “Bad Lieutenant” which as a friend of mine pointed out “made ‘Taxi Driver’ look like ‘Alice In Wonderland’.” The only thing that these films have in common with each other is they have a main character who is a police lieutenant with serious gambling and drug addictions that sink them down into a world of immorality. Other than that, these are completely different cinematic works which somehow ended up with the same darn title. Comparing the two, while in some respects inevitable, does neither film any favors. If you do find me comparing them to each other, it is truly an accident (I understand if you don’t buy that). My guess is that the “Bad Lieutenant” title was chosen for commercial purposes, and that’s regardless of the fact that Ferrara’s film found a bigger audience on video and DVD than any NC-17 movie could ever hope to find in theaters (assuming if any near you dared play it).

Before I continue, I have to confess that this film is the very first feature length movie from Werner Herzog that I have ever seen. Yes, I did see his “Grizzly Man” and “Encounters at the End of the World,” but they were both documentaries (brilliant ones might I add). Being the big movie buff that I am, you will probably find this to be unbelievable and shameful on my part (it probably is). But on the upside, you won’t have to worry about me comparing this film to all his others he has made in a long and acclaimed career. Odds are that it might suffer compared to his other works, so be thankful I’m not stuck doing that here. From what I have heard, Herzog’s films deal with human psyches in a most extreme and uncontrollable state, so his “Bad Lieutenant” must be right up his alley in terms of themes he has dealt with throughout his career. It also allows Nicholas Cage a role where he can (and does he ever) go full out crazy in the only way an actor like him can. This is the kind of performance Cage is famous for, and the likes of which we have been denied for far too long.

Cage stars as Terence McDonagh who, when we first see him, is a sergeant with the New Orleans police force. As it opens, Terence is entering the severely damaged police department with his partner Stevie Pruit (Val Kilmer in a surprisingly subdued performance) as they try to salvage some stuff that was not laid waste in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They end up coming across a prisoner still in his cell who should have already been evacuated, and he is running out of time as the water level rises. And let’s not forget that snake we see traveling through the toxic water in the opening credits. It will come to represent Terence’s soul as it travels deeper and deeper into an evil place it will be ever so lucky to escape from. Anyway, these two detectives seem perfectly willing to let this unlucky schmuck drown, but when Terence sees him start to pray, he quickly jumps into the contaminated water to rescue him. Although he succeeds and is later made a lieutenant as a result, he also ends up with a serious back injury which requires medication he is told to take indefinitely, probably for the rest of his life.

Terence starts off being prescribed Vicodin by his less than hopeful doctor, something I had when I got my wisdom teeth taken out, and which my mother became terrified I would get addicted to. It’s all downhill from there as the lieutenant quickly moves from Vicodin to cocaine, and then to crack or whatever else he can smuggle out of the evidence room. Just when you think McDonagh could not sink any deeper, he does. Then he hits rock bottom when he gets involved with local drug dealer Big Fate played by rapper Xzibit, looking far more lively here than he did in “The X-Files: I Want To Believe.” By collaborating with Big Fate, Terence hopes to pay off his mounting debts he brought upon himself by betting on the wrong damn teams. Throughout this twisted voyage of his, he is also met by a pair of iguanas who keep following him. Of course, no one can see these scaly animals except him.

As dark and immoral as the plot and the characters of this movie are, I actually found it to be shockingly funny. Seriously, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” has moments that were so laugh out loud funny, I almost couldn’t believe how much I was enjoying myself while watching this. It’s like Werner Herzog took the original “Bad Lieutenant” and subtracted all the Catholic guilt and angst and replaced it with a heap of bizarre black comedy that seemed never ending. What’s on display here gives “Observe and Report,” a movie that has grown on me a lot since I saw it, a big run for its money in the perversely funny department. The audience I saw it with at Landmark Theatres in Los Angeles were also laughing ecstatically in utter shock even more than I was. I got to see this “Bad Lieutenant” in one of their smaller theaters which had black leather couches you could lounge on by your lonesome, and it was a more effective and comfortable way to take in all this madness which left us in stitches.

But the big delight I got out of “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is seeing Nicholas Cage acting in a totally unhinged state like he was doing a sequel to “Wild at Heart.” Maybe I’ve been too hard on Nic Cage lately, but this feels like such a welcome return to form for him. Actually, he was really good in a movie that came out earlier this year (“Knowing”), but this collaboration with Werner Herzog brings Nic back to the kind of role he does best. From “Leaving Las Vegas” to “Face/Off,” Cage proved to be a master of over the top performances infused with endless creativity. This was long before he did movies where he was just over the top, or went after one “National Treasure” too many. But here, Werner sets him loose to play a character whose mind is in a constant state of implosion that exposes a soul most corrupted.

One key scene which does look like it was taken from Abel’s film is when Terence pulls over a young couple who are about to drive home from a club. Nicholas plays the scene straight as he gets from these two what he wants and knows they have on them. Cage suddenly switches gears when the lady gives him a hit from what she is smoking (either marijuana or something much stronger), and he ends up making out with her while her stunned schmuck of a boyfriend watches. The scene is almost as horrifying as it is hilarious, assuming this debauchery is your kind of entertainment. You’re not really laughing at what he is doing as much as you do at the fact that he is debasing himself without a care in the world. Only an actor as risk taking and reckless as Cage could possibly sell us on such a scene.

So what’s Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant” really all about? I’m not entirely sure. It could be that the director is looking at a man whose soul is as toxic as the water that submerged much of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and of how this man is forced to descend into hell in order to find of redemption. But this movie is so over the top in how it portrays Terence’s increasingly manic state that you have to wonder if Herzog is more interested in the journey the character is taking as opposed to where he ends up. It didn’t matter much to me in the end because I was enjoying myself too much, and that’s even if it was for all the wrong reasons.

Nicholas Cage is also surrounded by a good cast of actors who do memorable work here as well. It was nice to see Brad Dourif here, having seen and liked him not too long ago in Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II,” as Terence’s bookie whom he is heavily in debt to. Val Kilmer is very good as Terence’s corrupt partner, and that’s even if he has to stand in the shadow of Cage throughout (I hope Val was alright with that). I have to say I was very surprised to Jennifer Coolidge cast as Terence’s stepmother. Having seen Jennifer in so many comic roles that she was funny as hell in, it was interesting to see her to take on something different and more dramatic. Vondie Curtis-Hall appears as well playing Terence’s chief, and Tom Bower rounds out the cast by portraying his alcoholic father.

Eva Mendes is also on board here as the bad lieutenant’s prostitute girlfriend, Frankie. She previously co-starred with Nicholas Cage in “Ghost Rider,” a movie I’m not really sure I want to see. As Frankie, Eva plays the same kind of role she played in “We Own The Night”; a party girl whose boyfriend (played by Joaquin Phoenix before he went nuts) supplies her with all the fun and drugs she ever needs. I haven’t seen her in many movies she has appeared in, so I’m not sure if her range is limited to roles based on her gorgeous body, or if she has not been given the opportunity to stretch beyond that. On the basis of her performance here, I think she should get stronger opportunites because she plays off of the other actors very well, and she makes the transition from being selfish to being saved from herself effectively believable.

Herzog gives this film a rough and dirty look which all but suits the characters and the sleaze they involve themselves in. This whole shebang could have been ruined if he shot the whole thing in high definition, for it would have made things look too tidy. I could see all these hardcore movie buffs go after Werner Herzog and accuse him of selling out if he did that, but I believe he is one of the very few directors incapable of doing so. This is not a movie you want to look all smoothed over and polished at the surface. It requires an atmosphere thick with humidity and with slime dripping off of everything as it eats away what is left. For all I know right now, Herzog is not a director who is even remotely interested in sweetening up story and characters in order to make his movies more available to a mainstream audience.

“Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” deserves to be taken on its own terms and not compared to one of the many movies from the 90’s where Harvey Keitel did the full monty. Its story is not always easy to follow, but it is endlessly entertaining for those in the mood for something bizarrely funny and far from normal. It also allows Nicholas Cage a temporary haven from all the mainstream junk he has been stuck in, and he gets free rein to go wild and crazy like no one else. Thus, Cage reminds of us that he is still more than capable of giving a brilliantly entertaining performance, not that we should have doubted that in the first place (the thought did cross my mind at times). Yes, he will return to doing big blockbuster movies for he has bills to pay (houses to sell too), but hopefully there is still enough energy in him to take on more roles like this.

***½ out of ****

As a movie buff, I have to admit that it is shameful on my part that I have not seen more of Werner Herzog’s films. The only other film of his I have seen to this date is “Grizzly Man,” a brilliant documentary about Timothy Treadwell and his obsession with the grizzly bears that later turned fatal. And like all brilliant documentaries made today, it did not get an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. Hopefully, the Academy will not ignore his latest documentary, “Encounters at the End of the World,” which is an endlessly fascinating documentary on his travels to Antarctica. It is at times an incredibly look at the icy landscape, at other times a bleak look at the inevitable end of the human race, and also a rather humorous and interesting look at the people who risk their lives by living there to study the cutting edge world of science.

Herzog narrates the documentary and it allows us to go inside his head on how he views the icy wilderness he went to, and of how views the people and the wildlife there. He makes it clear from the onset that when he was asked by Discovery Films to do this, he agreed to it on the condition that he would not be forced to do a “fuzzy” movie with penguins in it (a little jab at “March of the Penguins”). The first 10 or so minutes deals with the McMurdo Research Station on Antarctica which is full of buildings and tractors constantly moving all over the place. Werner finds himself wanting to get away from McMurdo right away as if we are corrupting the Antarctic island with our own self interest, and he remarks of the horrors there like “yoga classes.”

Eventually, he ventures out of the encampment and into the far off research facilities removed from the town. We see him and others there being put thru safety drills and emergency preparations to deal with the worst of circumstances. The group leader speaks of how the wind can get so bad that you can’t see your hand in front of your face or even hear yourself talk. This lends a chilling effect to an already chilling environment, and while it is exciting to be there, you feel the danger of it all throughout the documentary.

The best part of this documentary, and the reason I wanted to see it based on the trailer, is the underwater footage where you follow divers underneath the glaciers of Antarctica. The visuals on display here are both beautiful and extraordinary to see here, and there is a unique beauty to the underwater landscape that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else. This is all reminiscent of James Cameron’s documentary “Aliens from the Deep” in which he went with scientists in submersibles down to the bottom of the ocean to see what lives down. While that was a fascinating documentary, this one is not encumbered with 3D effects and of looks at where the future will take us. It deals with the world right now, and doesn’t hide from how all this will disappear in the far off future.

I also just wanted to find out how these scientists were able to dive down into waters where they would not be expected to stay alive in for more than 5 minutes. They wear special suits that are heavily insulated to protect them from the cold, and they wear gloves that threaten to make them look like aliens from another planet. Director Herzog points out that the water they are diving in is -2 degrees Celsius, and that the divers go in with no ropes attached to their bodies to give them more room to move around. Still, this is very dangerous work they are doing, and if they get lost underneath the glacier, they will become a permanent frozen resident. You feel the danger of what they are doing, but you end up getting overwhelmed by the spectacular visuals they find underneath it all.

Another fascinating moment in the movie is when some scientists on the island play recordings of the sounds the local seals make underwater. The seals themselves steal some scenes from the human actors as they lie back lazily in the sun and look too tired to get up and acknowledge anybody. The underwater sounds of the seals sound so unreal, and you cannot help but feel that they are all computer generated. But they are indeed the real thing, and you experience the sounds along with Werner and the scientists as they put their ears down to the ground and take it all in. It’s an amazing moment in the film.

The other thing I really loved about this movie was how it was just not another average science documentary with a lot of talking heads telling you all the things you need to know about the environments that they are studying. There is science talk throughout the movie which is fine, but Herzog also looks at the individual personalities that he comes in contact with throughout his journey. Along with Herzog, you also wonder what could make all these people come to one of the most isolated places on the face of the earth, and how they stay there for so long. This makes “Encounters at the End of the World” all the more interesting to watch.

Among the people that Herzog meets throughout the journey are a philosopher who has a great quote at the end of the movie of how the universe is looking at itself through our eyes, and how we give life to everything in the way we view it. We meet one of the scuba divers who has a pensive moment where he takes in the fact that this is the last dive he will be making. One of the most powerful moments is when Werner meets up with a Russian who had escaped the Soviet Union after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and he almost loses it emotionally when he tries to describe how bad it was when he left. We also see that he has an escape plan at the ready with a big pack of supplies in case he needs to flee once again.

There are a couple of other people that documentary that just talk and talk about themselves and the adventures they have been on. Herzog cuts them off in his narration and says:

“To make a long story short…”

The documentary does have a bleak view of the future of humanity, and the scientists are fully aware of this as temperatures continue to rise, and the ice will eventually melt way off into the future. This is also shown as we see a group of scientists sitting around watching “Them,” a 50’s B-movie about radioactive ants that have grown to an enormous size. It turns out to be one of many apocalyptic movies they show to each other each week. I wonder if they have ever gotten around to watching John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” That’s what I used to think of when someone mentions Antarctica.

At the center of this movie is not just Antarctica, but Herzog himself. His narration throughout could have been annoying in a grandstanding way, but it serves to illuminate what a funny and interesting person he is. Clearly, he is attracted to madness in various forms throughout the world as is shown here and previously in “Grizzly Man.” I imagine that this is a big theme in all of his movies. We discover all there is to see through his eyes, and of how he views the beauty of the ice and how it forms. It does make me want to see more of his movies.

“Encounters at the End of the World” is currently in limited release, but I doubt that it will go beyond that to a wider release. This movie will most likely find its audience on DVD, and I imagine it will be an incredible viewing experience on Blu-Ray. Just remember what one of the men out there said in the movie and remember it always:

“Global warming is real.”

**** out of ****