> REVIEW
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Rampart (2011)
For one cop corruption knows no limit…
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By Helen Adkins | February 2012
DIRECTOR: Oren Moverman
WRITER(s): James Ellroy/Oren Moverman
Oren Moverman’s downbeat Rampart refers to an LAPD police division notorious for its corruption and brutality in the 1990’s. We’re talking of the era of Rodney King, the black man who in 1991 was brutally beaten by LAPD cops, and filmed, which led to the LA riots after the officers involved were acquitted.
It’s against this back drop, but at the end of the decade, that we meet Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson), a hardened LAPD cop, complete with perpetual cigarette and aviator sunglasses, whose corrupt practices and brutality remains stubbornly intact despite the shifting of the moral landscape around him.
Known as ‘Date Rape Dave’, a moniker bestowed upon him after he murdered a serial date rapist and got away with it, Dave exercises a fine line in self-denial and rationalising about the way he delivers justice. Proud to call himself a vigilante, who only hurts the bad guys, he tells a young rookie, ‘Everything you learned in the Academy is bullshit. Now, lets go and have some fun.”
Except for Dave, this involves murder, extortion, robbery and assault on a seemingly regular basis. Inevitably, his racist, bullying and violent practices become his undoing as the harassed figures in authority, namely Joan Confrey (Sigourney Weaver), try to reason with his bullish self-denial after he half beats to death a Mexican motorist and it’s caught on video.
Thus follows Dave’s tense, agonising slide into moral hell as he loses the support of friends and colleagues, in a world he can’t adapt to and is horribly out of touch with. When he argues legal points with the skill of a pro, the depths of his self-denial are stunning, yet the sheer intelligence in amassing such knowledge makes the character a real treat to watch.
But it’s at home, where the story becomes more than a portrait of a bent cop. Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche play his ex-wives, sisters who have a daughter each by him and now all live together and want him out of their lives.
And it’s the scrutiny of his home and romantic life which lifts Rampart out of banality, as Dave reveals himself equally contradictory and complex. Coming from the old world where women must be protected, he’s surrounded by strong and intelligent females who goad him for his ‘dinosaur’ views and are clearly moving into a new era of power and self-determination.
Harrelson is at his most skilful here, undercutting the taut brutality of his character with vulnerability and a gut-wrenching need for attention from the women in his life. A scene where he spies on his family, after they have finally ejected him from their lives, is truly heartbreaking.
All this saves Moverman’s film from being a slightly morose and standard bent cop story to a realistic and thoughtful journey of a man left behind in the wake of new thinking and political influences. Plot lines don’t always tie up and the ending is left open, although it’s hard to imagine too many routes for a man whose chances of dodging justice have run out.
Script…………………………………………………………………………………………….
James Ellroy and Oren Moverman have skilfully created a compelling and
complex character in Dave Brown battling to cope with the changing moral
landscape around him. 3
Direction………………………………………………………………………………………..
Moverman’s typically unfussy direction is taut and realistic, if a little slow
moving at times. 3
Verdict…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Harrelson plays Dave with powerful skill and subtlety, while his supporting cast
are excellent foils to this deeply flawed yet compelling character. 3
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