Rampart ————————————————-5/10
Directed by Oren Moverman, Written by Oren Moverman and James Ellroy, Starring Woody Harrelson, Robin Wright, Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche and Brie Larson
IMDB SYNOPSIS- So meet Dave Brown, Brown is a cop long ago unleashed from the rules of the Los Angeles Police Department. Roving the streets in his black-and-white cruiser, he governs and punishes at will. His home life is a riddle. Somehow he has fathered children with two sisters. Somehow he still lives casually with them both, slipping in and out of a family life that’s as tangled as his long career on the force. His own daughter calls him Date Rape. That’s because, years ago, Brown may have killed a rapist and gotten away with it. The shadow of the incident still haunts him, so when his Rampart division gets caught up in a corruption scandal, Brown makes an easy target. As the controversy seeps through the department and into city hall, this hardened, reckless officer finds himself at the centre of a sordid L.A. story.
Positives- Woody Harrelson gives an impressive performance as the unsavory L.A. Police Officer Dave “Date Rape” Brown. He’s an unhinged, scary and mostly pathetic human being. Brown is exactly what you don’t want in a cop. (and sadly a type that often attempts to go into law enforcement) In part due to his upbringing and part due to the hardening that takes place in a man who has endured the Vietnam War and twenty years patrolling the street of L.A., he has a horrifying and concrete world view. He’s a racist, sexist and all around misanthrope. (as his daughter plainly states) It’s not an attractive character to play, but Harrelson is able to show some vulnerability in the guy, humanizing him just a little as his whole world starts to crumble around him and he tries to hold on to anything and weather the storm.
Brown basically believes he can do anything he wants and get away with it. He believes being a Police Officer and carrying a gun makes everything he does right. He also thinks he’s a lot more clever than he actually is, so the best scenes in the film end up being Brown’s interactions with those whose job is to investigate him and his questionable actions. Everyone knows Brown isn’t following procedure, that he does things his own way and is mostly full of shit, but his smugness and the steaming animosity in those discussions are fascinating to watch.
Negatives- I see RAMPART mostly as a character study of Harrelson’s Brown. He has some bizarre and interesting family dynamics, but is so far down an ugly path by the time you get to know him at the beginning of the film that it’s really difficult to form any bond with him. He’s despicable and not all that interesting of a guy, so I didn’t find myself wanting to study him or spend much time with him other than the fact that Harrelson was playing the part.
The Director Moverman likes to experiment with structure and improvise a good deal, which works at times, but with RAMPART it seems to make the film feel disjointed. He also goes overboard on the jump cuts early, making it feel like you are watching a choppy Youtube video with a bad internet connection. The rotating 360 degree thing he tried during a conversation around a table was distracting and felt silly. I don’t know how a more structured film would have come out or even what exactly the story would have been, but Moverman’s interesting methods didn’t work nearly as well in RAMPART as they did in his very good film from a few years ago, THE MESSENGER.
I got nothing out of the side plot (if you can call it that) with Robin Wright. It almost felt like there was more there that got cut, but since it’s Robin Wright you don’t want to cut her completely out of the film, so you are left with whatever that was.
Verdict- RAMPART isn’t a terrible film, but it lacks anything that really grabs you in order to make you care about these characters or want to see what happens to them. Woody Harrelson gives a committed, strong performance playing a vulnerable, despicable character grasping at anything as his world collapses. It’s a character study of a character you aren’t sure you want to study. The film often feels disjointed and that’s magnified by some camera choices made by the director, Moverman. I was a fan of Moverman’s last film, THE MESSENGER and find him and his way of working interesting, so was disappointed by RAMPART. I think people are OK to skip RAMPART, but should check out THE MESSENGER if they haven’t already
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