Avi Lerner, actor Nicholas Cage and guest attend the Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans Dinner held at Cipriani during the 66th Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2009 in Venice, Italy. Photo courtesy of Francois Durand / Getty Images

If you’re looking for an action based thriller, then you will be sadly let down. Instead, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” is a dark film with humor. Academy Award-nominated German film director, Werner Herzog, creates a story of the struggle of personal demons that many people can connect to.

The film stars Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage as Terrence McDonaugh, a New Orleans police lieutenant who is losing himself to a battle with drug addictions to cocaine and prescription medication. Cage heads toward a downward spiral as he tries to hunt down the killers of five Senegalese illegals that were murdered in a drug hit. Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner plays Big Fate, a possible source to the killings and supplier to the murdered victims.

Cage shows his soft and vulnerable side when trying to satisfy his prostitute girlfriend Frankie Donnenfield, played by Eva Mendes. The glamorous Mendes seems to live day to day surrounded by cocaine addiction and waiting for her next “client.”

When Cage hits rock bottom from all the drugs, the murder case, his girlfriend and an alarming amount of money he owes to his bookie, the story takes a turn for the better and unexpectedly ends up becoming a fairy tale.

Cage’s over-the-top performance is wild and comedic. The roaming iguana, “shoot him again” and lucky crack pipe scene bring relief and humor.
The movie immerses the audience into Cage’s life and captures the very moments where we all can feel his pain, weakness, anger and frustrations. You cannot help but feel pity for his life.

Bad Lieutenant was filmed in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. According to director Werner Herzog, “New Orleans was the fertile ground to stage a film noir, or rather a new form of film noir where evil was not just the most natural occurrence. It was the bliss of evil which pervades everything in this film.”

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans opens on Nov. 20, 2009.

Ryden Malby (Alexis Bledel) had a plan: study hard, get a college scholarship, avoid the party scene, graduate and get a job at Happerman and Browning. Everything seemed to be going pretty well until she found out that she’d lost the job that she had always dreamed of to her archenemy Jessica Bard (Catherine Reitman). Of course, not getting the job meant not living at a chic apartment in Los Angeles — and moving back home instead.

The Malbys are not your typical neighborhood family. Ryden’s dad, Walter (Michael Keaton) works as a manager for luggage factory, who at one point spends the night in jail for trying to sell stolen belt buckles (he apparently did not know that the buckles were stolen). Ryden’s mom Carmella (Jane Lynch) thinks her youngest son Hunter (Bobby Coleman) is weird, and for good reason — Hunter licks people’s heads. Maureen (Carol Burnett) is Ryden’s grandmother who can’t leave the house without her oxygen tank.

Ryden enjoys the company of her best friend Adam Davies (Zach Gilford), who has a huge crush on her, but has never had the audacity to make a move. Then there is Ryden’s 30-something Brazilian neighbor, David Santiago (Rodrigo Santoro), whom she has also flirted with.

So focused on her so-called plan, Ryden had forgotten about what was going on around her. Adam’s tough love helps her realize how egocentric she had been.

“You’re so completely obsessed with your future that you forget about everyone you’re supposed to give a s— about,” Adam tells Ryden. And so she learns — the hard way. She eventually comes to a realization that what she had planned for is not the life she really wants.

“Post Grad” is a mixture of awkwardness and light comedy. Awkwardness: David’s comment about “the passion of the guacamole” is a little gauche, and there is a massive product placement involving Eskimo Pies. As for comedy, the audience gets quite a laugh when Walter runs over the cat and buries it inside a pizza box, and also when Hunter uses a coffin to join a Soap Box Derby race.

Bledel may lose some of her charm in this movie. Her acting is dry and almost characterless. There are scenes where she shows no emotion or personality, not even when David tries to fondle her ears. Keaton does a great job in being an annoying father. Even I would resent living back at home if my dad was as hopeless as he is. Grandma Maureen’s bizarre obsession with dying is as awkward as her attempts at giving Ryden condom lectures.

Post Grad is definitely not a top box office movie, but it has a relaxed approach to what almost everyone is experiencing right now: the job hunt. The movie is not mocking the state of economy; but it is showing the audience a positive approach to it. The movie is accessible especially for fresh college graduates, soon-to-be college graduates or even for people who are simply out of work. It is a struggle to find the perfect job, mainly because there are so few jobs out there.

After watching the movie, I am quite worried about what my “post-grad” life will be. Am I going to get my dream job? Am I going to move back home? Will I at least have a decent job? But I also have a plan, and that plan is to live in the present and not to worry too much about the future. If I do, like Ryden, I will just end up getting disappointed. Graduating college does not guarantee you a spot anywhere. That’s life, and it’s hard. We don’t always get what we want in life. Sometimes, we concentrate so hard on the impossible that we miss out on opportunities that are right in front of us.