Nicholas Cage's portrayal of the amusingly corrupt yet dedicated detective was masterful. His facial expressions were fantastic especially during his drug induced hallucination scenes. The part where Nic loses his rag with the old ladies was fantastically funny as was the "Shoot him again" bit.
The most amusing part about the film though was the speed in which every aspect that was wrong with the detective's life was turned around from being unremittingly bad to extraordinarily good. All his problems seemed to evaporate within a couple of minutes.
I agree with the other posters comments about Val Kilmer having run to seed since his Top Gun days - I did not even realise it was him during the film until I saw his name in the credits at the end and then thought back to who he could have been playing!!
I give this film 8 out of 10.
