Rampart

★★★★

(2012)

Woody Harelson’s big ole face occupies nearly every frame in Rampart, Oren Moverman’s second film directing him. It’s a movie which takes it’s place proudly and loudly in the cannon of Hollywood bad cops alongside Fererra and Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant, and Curtis Hanson’s L.A Confidential framing the city of L.A just as filthily as it’s main character study. We follow Dave”Date Rape” Brown at the end of the last century, trapped in the “Rampart” of the LAPD, his methods and his life both under fire. He’s living in the guest house of two sisters (Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon) with whom he has one daughter each and trying his hardest to avoid a disciplinary trial after a tape of him beating a motorist made it to the news.

The chain smoking, hard drinking Brown, barely eats a bite of food in the whole film (in one particular scene you wish it was nothing at all) living his life in a constant blur of drink and one night stands. Rampart is a seriously tough piece of work promising redemption at every turn and then snatching it away as Brown gets himself deeper and deeper into trouble. As a character study it’s runaway train stuff, trying your hardest to find some kind of redeeming feature in him is exhausting and Harelson turns in the best performance of his career. The supporting cast are equally good with a tough as nails Sigourney Weaver butting heads with Brown in the force.

James Ellroy’s own script is vintage stuff, using corruption to staggering effect and offering little help in finding a way out of it, doing a 180 degree turn on his claim that script of his film’s are dead, he has penned a tight and harrowing piece of work. If you can hack it I can’t recommend Rampart enough. Be sure to wash it down with something very very sweet.