Rampart

This film would be almost intolerable were it not for the fact that it is based on incidents that happened in 1999 in the Rampart Division of the LAPD, incidents still unresolved. Writer James Ellroy examined the corruption of the police force and came up with this quasi-true story. According to Ellroy, 'I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime writer who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific what Leo Tolstoy is to the Russian novel and what Ludwig van Beethoven is to music.' What happens on the screen in this film is best viewed with a bit of Xanax on board along with an anti-nausea medication. Oren Moverman co-wrote the screenplay and directs.

David Douglas Brown (Woody Harrelson in a one man powerhouse of a performance) is a veteran Los Angeles police officer, one of the last of the renegade cops who works out of the Rampart Division. Dave is misogynistic, racist, brutally violent, egotistical womanizer, yet he defends himself against many of these accusations as he says that his hate is equal opportunity. Though unlawful, he uses intimidation and brutal force to defend his worldview. The most notorious of his actions is his purportedly murdering a suspected serial date rapist, which is why he has been given the nickname "Date Rape Dave". He lives with two of his ex- wives - sisters Barbara (Cynthia Nixon) and Catherine (Anne Heche) - in an effort to keep family together, namely his two daughters, Helen and Margaret, who each have a different sister as their mother. Dave still maintains a sexual relationship with both sisters - whenever the mood suits any of them - while he openly has other sexual relationships with the likes of Sarah (Audra McDonald) and Linda (Robin Wright). His informer is retired officer Hartshorn (Ned Beatty) and street person General Terry (Ben Foster). His boss is Joan Confrey (Sigourney Weaver) who attempts to cover Dave's past deeds but ultimately must face the true rascallion he is. When Dave is caught on video brutally beating a man who accidentally ran into his police car he is faced with decisions that uncover not only his misdeeds but those of his fellow workers.

The cast is filled with fine support (Jon Foster, Ice Cube, Steve Buscemi, et al) who have very little to do, but Harrelson is in every frame obnoxiously smoking cigarettes in a chain smoker fashion. There is not real storyline to follow; we just are forced to watch the wretched life of a disgustingly bad cop with just enough slightly good virtues to keep us with him. As Catherine states, 'You know what I think? I think you were a dirty cop from day one. You were a dirty cop with a dirty mind and you dirtied all of us up by default.' And that includes the audience.

Grady Harp

"I was under attack, I went after the suspect. End of story." Dave Brown (Harrelson) is an LAPD officer that who does things his own way. After he is caught on tape brutally beating someone after they hit his car his career is in jeopardy. While trying to defend himself against the charge an old alleged crime of his comes back up. This is a really good movie. The big problem is that it is again nothing really original. He acts the way "Dirty Harry" acts but has the morals of Denzel Washington in "Training Day". The movie has an all-star cast and the acting is fantastic. Harrelson especially is great in this in a very layered performance. He covers everything in this role; brutality, being a smart-ass, father in a very dysfunctional family as well as womanizer. This is a great role for him and the movie is very much worth watching. Again, though the only problem is that it seems like this movie has been done to death. Overall, nothing new but still good. I recommend this. I give it a B+.

Regarded in the trailer as "one of the most corrupt cops ever on screen," Woody Harrelson's character was honestly underwhelming. The actor did an exceptional job portraying a dirty cop, but was no where near the capacity of evil as Denzel in Training Day or Damon in The Departed. His portrayal was very real which is a characteristic that Oren Moverman appears to gravitate to in his films and while Moverman, in his second theatrical film, does a good job, it is no where near what he achieved in his amazing debut The Messenger. Harrelson did a fine job but he also failed to achieve the same greatness that he displayed in The Messanger as well. Some of the talented character actors in the film like Ben Foster and Sigourney Weaver deliver solid performances but aren't on screen enough make any impact overall to the film. It's a film that due to it's original limited release will likely struggle at the box office and moviegoers aren't missing too much in the process. I enjoy dramatic movies more than any other genre, but I found this film bland and the characters for the most part only OK at best. The actors did a good job but not good enough to make the film a success. There was just no wow factor in this film, which anticipated the wow factor being Harrelson's villainous performance. I'd give it a C in large part due to a broad and bland plot which could've been much better.

The recent run of Hollywood's "corrupt cop" movies seem to fall into two categories. There are those with great story lines which really draw the viewer into their world (like the surprisingly decent STREET KINGS) and those which show promise but move along aimlessly without a decent story (such as END OF WATCH). Unfortunately, RAMPART falls into the latter category.

The film features a gaunt Woody Harrelson as your garden-variety corrupt cop, given over to adultery, racism, misogyny and about another dozen 'isms' and 'ogynies' while you're at it. He's an intriguing character, but unfortunately he's mired in an all-too-familiar world in a storyline which never really goes anywhere, instead just plodding along until it finally finishes. It's all rather disappointing, leaving me thinking "well, was that it?" come the end. After all, it's not like it brings anything original or thought-provoking to the genre.

In addition, RAMPART also manages to waste a number of decent supporting actors who usually appear in just a scene or two. Sigourney Weaver, Ben Foster, and Steve Buscemi are three of the obvious ones who are underutilised, but Ned Beatty and THE WALKING DEAD's Jon Bernthal also deserve better than this. In the end, RAMPART becomes a depressingly humdrum cop movie, too obsessed with realism to be an entertaining movie in itself.

Always watchable largely thanks to Harrelson--he's really quite good---but never quite believable film tracks a couple days in the life of a not exactly dirty, but not exactly clean cop. To my mind, Harrelson's character isn't exactly dirty--we never witness him taking bribes, or stealing money, or looking the other way--he's just way overzealous in his pursuit of bad guys--actually scratch that--something happens at the mid-point that actually changes part of that last statement--but he still remains a clean(ish) cop trying to do right by society, even guys he claims to hate--he tries to give a fair shake to. Its that overzealousness that lands him in trouble tho---he beats 2 people in the first ten minutes of the movie--but in both cases i think they were both understandably beatings given the circumstances. Meh whatever, film starts piling things on for Harrelson--having been caught with a cell phone cam beating up the 2nd guy (who was running away from him!) he's then put on suspension, and then he gets put under investigation which leads to...not a whole lot honestly.

Film is a very shaggy dog story---Not much really happens throughout the movie other then just watching Woody Harrelson walk around and talk tough---he tries to bond with his teenage daughter, he tries to make it right with his ex wives, he tries to figure out what Internal Affairs wants to hear so he can get his job back, and yeah that's about it really. I feel like the events of the end don't really add up to much, and the big climactic scene at the ending is well again not much of anything really. Film is basically a 70's Esq character study of this guy and his life that seems to be arbitrarily falling apart around him. That said, the film's well shot, its nicely acted and not just by Harrelson, the actress playing his teenage daughter i feel scores just as many points as Woody does in their handful of scenes together. There's enough here that you wish it was better instead of the mish-mash stew we got going on here. still its worth a look on cable should you stumble on it.