Werner Herzog directs this darkly comic thriller loosely based on Abel Ferrara's ' Bad Lieutenant' (1992), although Herzog claims to have never watched the original film. Nicolas Cage stars as corrupt cop Terrence Mc Donagh, a recently-promoted police detective in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, who approaches both his job & his escalating drug habit with instinctive abandon. Playing fast & loose with the law, Mc Donagh channels his manic energy into investigating the death of a family of Senagalese immigrants & taking on local drug kingpin Big Fate (Xzibit). Eva Mendes co-stars as Mc Donagh's troubled prostitute girlfriend, Frankie.