Ending of "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans"

In the ending Cage is a fish, which is to say a Christian 'man of God'. Notice at the beginning of the movie, the man trapped in the water prays to God for assistance and Cage jumps in and saves him. There is an 'angel of God' protecting him throughout the film and why everything magically falls into place. In the scene where he takes the cocaine that is supposed to kill him, you see playing on the TV a bull goring a man, in the Old Testament God is depicted as a powerful bull, so this depiction actually means God's angel saved him from death (again).

That is why you see lizards and crocodiles all over the film, these are metaphoric depictions of demons, which Cage's guardian angel contends with but overcomes. Cage's character still has free will though, so he still suffers from his addiction.

Alternatively Cage might have been possessed by a demon, the ending then would be negative. That is Cage is trapped in the sea (a fish) with leviathan. This ending is a bit cynical though.

I just finished watching it, and was completely "Wtf?!?" throughout the whole last 10–15 minutes, which begin exactly when you said: right after he sits down next to his Dad's wife, with the scene immediately after, which shows us the guy who told the lieutenant (over and over) that he had made a bad mistake as he was leaving his (the lieutenant's) girlfriend's place sitting patiently and waiting for the lieutenant at his desk. From that moment until the very end, I found the movie more and more incredulous with each passing minute, until I literally guffawed out loud and said "Oh please......!" and I was watching it alone. I usually don't react audibly to films when I'm alone, so just to say the sudden difference was pretty extreme.

In fact, right after around 4 loose ends were neatly tied up with a big bow, starting with above and ending with the lieutenant's boss saying they found the drug dealer's prints on a crack pipe at the murder scene, all within about 3 minutes time, I remember thinking "Oh, I get it now... this is like a drug dream or something... they're probably gonna show him waking up pretty soon." Then like I said, it started getting worse and worse. But the worst was yet to come: that was after, after he was honored with promotion to Captain with everyone in attendance, including his girl who was (of course) pregnant, and they all had their wineless dinner and he dropped her off at home, when the camera stayed on the picturesque little house with the pretty flowers and the almost perfect symmetry of the trees bookending the whole thing, with the radiant little (expecting) woman standing in front ... BIG INHALE ... that whole thing was just so cloyingly sweet and hokey and corny that it caused the aforementioned solitary audible "oh please!" moment :)

Gotta accelerate this, or it'll be even longer than it's turning out to be: after the end I went online, looking for the inevitable explanation, and like you, I didn't find anything, until I saw what was written here, and you provided the little thing I was missing: the exact moment when it all started, which was right after he tooted from the open bag of very pure smack, and when you tied it together by reminding me about the prior warnings about its strength, etc, and I put all that together with a few other little things, like the fact his girlfriend chose the exact moment she did to go to rehab with the dad — just as he was waving that bag in front of her face, and find the strength to turn it down not once not twice but three times, because he kept trying — I saw that you nailed it, bro. You got it. You put it together. I am certain you are right. I'm actually 100% certain, not even 99. My reason is very simple: it all ties together perfectly. It makes too much sense for it to be anything else. It can't NOT be, in other words. A good filmmaker, who proved he was before this film and during this whole film up to the last 10–15 minutes does not "suddenly" become a bad, laughable, cliché director for those final 10–15 minutes!

I'm certain you are right, bro. Kudos. I'm looking forward now to watch it again — ALL of it — this time keeping in mind what I now know, so I can catch all the little clues that I'm sure are there throughout and that I'm just not remembering right now. I'm sure there are some we both missed. In many ways this is like a very scaled down version of how David Chase actually prepared us for the Sopranos ending a few years ago ... most everybody had missed it then, too :)

The movie is shown from the disjointed perspective of an out of control junkie. So most everything is in question as to whether it actually happened. How could he have saved the inmate if he nearly broke his back jumping down? Is it possible that the lady cop refused to steal from the property room, but still got the speeding ticket fixed? Yes, very. Is it possible that a college game that was lopsided early became close by the end? Very possible. It's the SEC. As far as the crack pipe, well he personally got Fates to smoke out of it. And then planted it. All that said, I believe many points throughout the film are "double-takes" as in we see things happen that never happen AND we see things happen that are left unexplained. Whose body is the gang dumping off the bridge while talking about real estate? Why so many amphibious and aquatic animals? I don't think there is supposed to be a clear story. It's drug induced hallucinogenic and disconnected from cause and effect, but with repetition representing addiction. Pay attention to the recurring places and themes.

It's actually a horrifying ending. The ending is supposed to be completely saccharine. I watched this with my Dad who was a retired LCDC counselor and he explained it. By complete Deus Ex Machina Nick Cage's character gets his life back together, he has a chance to go clean, have a family and a promotion and straighten up. And he does, but he also doesn't. The movie ends with him nose deep in smack. Cage is absolutely a nonfunctional addict as we have witnessed and time will more than likely drag him down again.

He's completely imprisoned and enslaved to his addiction like a fish is trapped by glass, he hasn't escaped, and anyone who has ever had to deal with friends and family with a pill addiction will pick up on that. The man he saved offered him a way out to get clean, maybe it'll work, maybe it's another dead end like his parents. Cage wants to know if fish have dreams and thus escape their prisons, even temporarily or if they are well and truly trapped.

It's worth noting that the crack pipe used in the investigation was his lucky crack pipe. Wouldn't it also have his DNA on it? The dealer he arrested should have told them about him. This leads me to believe the dream theory. Also, I think IA would have been on him in a good department a long time ago. Unless internal investigations frequently do poorly at their job.

Ya, I think a lot of you are missing the point.. First off, The lady cop fixed the tickets for him. The fact that the three men coming after him for money were killed by the dealers is why the guy came in to drop his charges and whatnot, which allowed Cage to be reinstated as a cop.. if you watch closely cage is the last one with the crack pipe in his hand that the main dealer just smoked from when the three men walk in, so he takes it to go plant the evidence to get him arrested for the murders.

And besides that the reason he shacked up with teh dealers int eh first place was to protect him from the people following him for money AND to get evidence to get them arrested, he never stopped caring about eh murders as he told them he had.

He creates his own happy ending, it's not a halucination.

but the tragedy of the story is that even after all that work to climb his way out, he fell back into his addiction and depression. Which as the above poster said is a horrible ending for him,. being an EX oxy addict for 8 years, (clean now for 6), I see it as a terrible ending for cage, despite all his work, he still can't escape his addiction.