After Hurricane Katrina, police sergeant Terence McDonagh rescues a prisoner, hurting his back in the process. He earns a promotion to lieutenant but develops an addiction to cocaine and painkillers. Six months later, Terence is assigned a case investigating the drug-related killing of a family.

Eyebrows were raised when Werner Herzog announced he was reimagining Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant. How do you top that perverse classic? Leaving the original far behind, Herzog ecstatically mounts a frenzied operatic fantasia, with a lead—in Nicolas Cage—on thunderous, unforgettable form.