Flick of The Day: Rampart

In late 1990's Los Angeles, a scandal engulfed the Rampart division of the LAPD and it's anti gang unit. Widespread allegations of corruption and police brutality and serious crime led to the implication of more than 70 officers in one of the largest corruption scandal ever. The fall out from this event is the setting for director Oren Moverman's Rampart, which is today's flick of the day.

Rampart

Woody Harrelson gives a grandstanding performance as LAPD officer David Brown, a man whose mere being pulses with rage. A veteran of the force, he is a deeply corrupt and compromised man who has committed many unknown crimes in the name of the law. By day he patrols the crime infested streets of Los Angeles populated by a melting pot of ethnicities while by night he carouses bars before returning home to his strange home life where he lives with his two daughters and two ex-wives who are both sisters. As the Rampart investigation reaches its height, David is caught on camera brutally beating a motorist who crashed into him. It appears that David is going to finally pay a penance for his career despite his own best efforts to wriggle out of the net. As his legal bills mount and his home life unravels, David goes to extremes to try and keep the job he loves.

Rampart is written by American crime writer James Ellroy, a man with a seeming fascination with hard bitten police officers and the underbelly of Los Angeles. Perhaps best known for his sprawling epic novel L.A Confidential  which was adapted by Curtis Hanson, his fingerprints are all over this film. For a writer of such dense plotting, the plot such as it is does not form a major part of Rampart. This is really a character study of one man and his actions. As such, Woody Harrelson inhabits the role completely giving a performance that has to be seen to be believed. Every muscle and sinew seems to pulse with menace and as a viewer you are left waiting for the explosion to occur with each new interaction.

While Harrelson's David is the sole focus for much of the film, there is a fine supporting cast in Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Wright and Steve Buscemi. It is a shame then that they are given so little to do. What exactly Robin Wright's character is in the script for is a mystery to me, she is another one of the numerous women who bed David through the course of the film but beyond that brings nothing and is a waste of a fine actress. This lack of development detract from the film and give it an uneven tone. You may wonder why you are bothering to follow dense conversations about the banalities of David's life and its unfortunate because Harrelson's performance deserves a better film. 

At times guilty of deplorable actions, at others terrifically verbose and with a remarkable ability to game the system, David Brown is an uncompromising creation that manages to avoid the clichés of the cop who bends the rules to catch the bad guy. David is a dark and bitter man who despite his obvious intelligence is unable to see he is his own worst enemy.

Dave Brown: I don't cheat on my taxes... you can't cheat on something you never committed to.

So then while this is a flawed movie, there is enough here to justify a viewing for Harrelson's performance alone. It could have been so much more but ends up as just a study of one man and really tails off at the end.