Susan Granger’s review of “Rampart” (Millennium Entertainment)
L.A. noir has become an atmospheric sub-genre of the cynical crime thriller, one that includes Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” and James Ellroy’s “L.A. Confidential.” Now Woody Harrelson plays an angry, bullheaded cop on a downward spiral, both professionally and personally.
Working as part of the notoriously intolerant, militaristic, and overtly corrupt Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department in the late 1990s, chain-smoking Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson) often takes the law into his own hands when the court system fails to exact justice, much to the chagrin of the scandal-plagued Assistant District Attorney (Sigourney Weaver), Mayor (Steve Buscemi) and Internal Affairs investigator (Ice Cube). He got the nickname Date Rape Dave because he allegedly shot and killed a serial rapist. But the 24 year-veteran vigilante gets fouled up when he’s videotaped brutally beating a motorist who slammed into his police cruiser. When that footage goes viral, it ignites a protest among those who feel the police department is out of control. Misanthropic Dave has been married twice – to sisters, Barbara (Cynthia Nixon) and Catherine (Anne Heche) – and he lives with them and his two daughters in a small, stucco family compound.
One night, he picks up Linda Fentress (Robin Wright), a boozy lawyer with whom he gets involved – and, complicating matters, there’s his old friend Hartshorn (Ned Beatty), a crooked ex-cop/informant, and General Terry (Ben Foster), a wheelchair-bound vet who roams the streets. But the emotional climax comes when his rebellious older daughter, Helen (Brie Larson), accuses him of being a macho, sexist, racist, homophobe, chauvinist bigot.
Adapted by novelist James Ellroy and director Oren Moverman and photographed by Bobby Bukowski, it’s a bit reminiscent of “The Messenger” (2009), also starring Woody Harrelson, in that it totally revolves around the psychology of a flawed, deeply troubled protagonist, who is inarticulate and action-oriented, and whose movements inevitably telegraph what’s going to happen next.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Rampart” is a sleazy 6, distinguished primarily by Harrelson’s “rotten from the inside out” rogue character study.
