Iron Man 2 | The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

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Jon Favreau´s Iron Man, powered by a revelatory Robert Downey Jr. performance, was a surprise megahit it 2008, wildly successful with critics and audiences alike. Advance word on the sequel hasn´t been promising: early reviews haven´t been overly kind (not that there have been many, I´m mainly going by Kirk Honeycutt´s in The Hollywood Reporter), and the fact that it´s opening in foreign territories a week ahead of the US raises some flags (though I´m guessing this might have more to do with curbing piracy.) But fear not: Iron Man 2 is very nearly as good as the first installment, and in some ways, it´s better. One of the big gripes with the first film was the third act, which abandoned most of the good that had come before it with a rather pedestrian smash-‘em-up climax. That´s not so much of a problem here, as the film keeps getting better as it goes along. 30 minutes in, though, I was worried. Over the opening credits, we have Russian Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) tending to his dying father and preparing some heavy machinery from Stark Industries blueprints. Up next, Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) drops into the Epcot-like Stark Expo to deliver a keynote speech. Then he´s off to a Godfather II-like senatorial hearing, during which Sen. Stern (Garry Shandling) and weapons contractor Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) want to force him to turn over his designs for the good of the country. Also, Stark is dying, as the palladium used to power his heart (and his suit) is rapidly poisoning his blood. He turns over the reins of Stark Industries to his hard-luck assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), who happens to have a pretty new assistant in Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), who you might guess by the casting has a larger role than is initially implied. And there´s some muted animosity between Stark and friend/Colonel James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, filling in for Terence Howard from the first film). That´s too much setup. Far too much setup, and the first half-hour of Iron Man 2 really drags and tests your patience and threatens to turn the movie into another overstuffed and overcomplicated Spider-Man 3. But then we have our first big action setpiece as Vanko shows up in Monaco as the supervillain Whiplash (though I don´t think he´s ever referred to by that on the screen), slicing up racecars and going after Stark. From there, the film reaches a high that it maintains till the very end as all the varying plotlines and characters converge, each given enough time to really pay off; by the finale, the rough half-hour of setup was worth it. The screenplay is credited to a single writer, actor Justin Theroux (working, of course, from the original comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and others); unusual for a major blockbuster. It´s his second script, following Tropic Thunder, and the comic flair here is one of the best things on display. Director Jon Favreau puts all the pieces together as well as he did in the first film, and improves upon the action scenes (not that there are many, also unusual for this kind of film); special credit goes to the spare (or rather, sophisticated) use of CGI: everything here feels more real than it ought to. Downey Jr., however, remains the real attraction, and he´s as good here as he was in the original: witty, sarcastic, narcissistic, yet incredibly endearing. With everything else going on, there´s less of him on display this time around, but an excellent supporting cast makes up for it. Rockwell, especially, has some wonderful dialogue and makes for a far better corporate villain than Jeff Bridges did in the first film. Rourke and Cheadle occasionally feel out of place, however; Rourke, due to a sketchy Russian accent and an underwritten character, and Cheadle, when compared to Howard in the original, feels less suited to the role. Samuel L. Jackson, who had a cameo at the end of Iron Man, has a more significant role here as Nick Fury, which includes a great donut shop scene that serves as a nod to Pulp Fiction. Fury still serves as little more than a teaser for an upcoming Avengers movie, among other works. Marvel Studios, after years of licensing out their characters led to inferior product, is really taking care of their material now, and should be richly rewarded. Note: most cinemas in the Czech Republic are screening only a dubbed version of Iron Man 2. Palace Cinemas Slovanský dům and Cinestar Anděl are among the cinemas screening the original English-language version.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

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Directed by Werner Herzog. Starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Val Kilmer, Fairuza Balk, Xzibit, Shawn Hatosy, Jennifer Coolidge, Tom Bower, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Brad Dourif, Denzel Whitaker, Irma P. Hall, Shea Whigham, Michael Shannon, Joe Nemmers, J.D. Evermore, Tim Bellow, Lucius Baston, Lauren Swinney, Nick Gomez. Written by William M. Finkelstein, from the 1992 film Bad Lieutenant written by Victor Argo, Paul Calderon, Abel Ferrara, Zoë Lund.

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A comparison to the original – which starred Harvey Keitel in the title role – is pointless, as there´s almost no connection here outside the theme, that the lead character is quite literally a bad lieutenant. A gambling addict, a drug addict, a sex addict, using his status to elevate himself above the law and feed his addictions. Herzog claims to have not seen the Ferrera film, and I wouldn´t be surprised if screenwriter William M. Finkelstein hadn´t seen it either. They were given the title, and ran with it.

Cage is Lieutenant Terence McDonagh, who begins the film by rescuing a trapped convict during the flooding after Hurricane Katrina. See, he´s not all that bad. And the drug addiction, that´s just due his persistent back pain. He´s investigating a drug-related homicide, which he couldn´t be less interested in; he knows who did it, all this evidence gathering and witness protecting is just getting in the way of having a good time. “What are these fuckin’ iguanas doing on my coffee table?”

This isn´t a film that focuses on plot, but these threads come together brilliantly by the end, in pitch-black comedy-tragedy. Finkelstein was a TV writer for crime dramas like L.A. Law and Law and Order, and the Television A-story, B-story, C-story merges quite wonderfully here with a more traditional three-act structure, along with a lot of diversions to side characters, like Terence´s recovering-alcoholic father (Tom Bower), his step-mother (Jennifer Coolidge), his partner (Val Kilmer), and a sometimes-lover (Fairuza Balk).