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. 

Flick of The Day:The Big Lebowski

It would be hard to argue against the Coen Brothers as the most consistently entertaining and talented film-makers of the last 25 years. They have consistently delivered great cinema across many genres, from their debut with the suspenseful thriller Blood Simple to the gangster epic Millers Crossing, the darkly comic Fargo and their Oscar winning western True Grit. Perhaps their best work, or at least their most quotable and comic picture is 1998's The Big Lebowski. Today's flick of the day, it is a deeply funny comic riff on a Raymond Chandleresque caper.

The Big Lebowski

Jeff Bridges, in a once in a lifetime performance, is Jeff 'The Dude' Lebowski, a layabout bowler and a Creedence Clearwater fan in 1991 Los Angeles. The Dude spends his days bowling and arguing with his two friends, ex-surfer Donny played by Steve Buscemi and Vietnam vet cum psychotic Walter played by the incomparable John Goodman. Arriving home one evening, he walks in on two hoodlums looking to collect a debt owed by a Jeffrey Lewbowski and his trophy wife Bunny to a Jackie Treehorn. One of them decides to urinate on The Dude's rug when the case of mistaken identity becomes apparent. The Dude decides to contact the big Lebowski and get compensation for his soiled rug. He is quickly drawn into a web of double crosses as he seeks to get to the bottom of the disappearance of Bunny Lebowski involving a trio of German nihilists, a pornographer,  a teenage car thief, a private detective, an artist who describes her work as "strongly vaginal" and Dude's crazy friend Walther.

The Dude: And, you know, he's got emotional problems, man. 

Walter Sobchak: You mean... beyond pacifism?

This is a gem of a movie, an absurdist take on the kind of hard boiled detective tales so often set in Los Angeles and penned by the likes of Chandler and Hammet. It has the kind of gleefully bizarre cast of characters that one only encounters in a Coen Brothers picture. Bridges' The Dude is a latter day stoner Philip Marlowe and his interactions with his crazy Vietnam obsesses friend played by Goodman are a highlight of the film. 

Donny: Are these the Nazis, Walter? 

Walter Sobchak: No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Less of a cogent tale then a series of encounters between The Dude and the oddballs which populate Southern California. In that sense, it is perhaps the most quotable film of all time with so many witty one liners, it is difficult to pick your favourite. Add this to a series of bizarre dream sequences  set to the music of Kenny Rogers and you have a film that really can't be missed.

The Dude: Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women, man. 

Malibu Police Chief: Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in this town. You don't draw shit, Lebowski. Now we got a nice, quiet little beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet. So let me make something plain. I don't like you sucking around, bothering our citizens, Lebowski. I don't like your jerk-off name. I don't like your jerk-off face. I don't like your jerk-off behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-off. Do I make myself clear? 

The Dude: [after a pause] I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. 

A commercial failure on its release in 1998, perhaps because its unstructured tale of idiocy clashed with the kind of crowd attracted to the Coen's work after the roaring success of Fargo. In the years since, it has come to be seen as the true classic it is and indeed has spawned a whole cottage industry of Dude related paraphernalia and even a festival.

Walter Sobchak: Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos.

Ultimately, this is the kind of film you either love or hate. You either buy in to the bizarre circumstances and run with it or you don't. It is a brilliant film held together by a fine ensemble cast and with perhaps the best script the Coens have ever written. A real must see.

Da Fino, Private Snoop: I'm a brother shamus! 

The Dude: Brother Seamus? Like an Irish monk? 

Da Fino, Private Snoop: What the fuck are you talking about?