Rampart

Plot synopsis:
The film opens as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson) patrols the Rampart Division. Brown is a 24-year veteran of the force, who previously served in the Vietnam War. While training a new officer, he roughs up a suspect to find the location of a meth lab. After work, he goes home to his two daughters and two ex-wives, who are also sisters (Heche and Nixon). After dinner, he goes to a piano bar where he picks up a stranger and has a one night stand.
The next day, he is t-boned in his patrol car. When he checks on the driver who hit him, the driver flees from his car, hitting Brown with his door as he exits. When Brown catches the driver, he brutally beats him, and the assault is captured by a bystander. The video creates another controversy for the LAPD, which is already besieged by the Rampart scandal. The Assistant District Attorney (Weaver) urges Brown to simply retire. He refuses and outlines his defense. Over the course of the film, it is revealed that Brown studied law and failed the bar exam, but he remains extremely knowledgeable about case law.
Back at the piano bar, Brown picks up a lawyer named Linda (Wright), after first determining that she is not surveilling him. Later he meets with ex-cop Hartshorn (Beatty), who suggests that Brown was set up to distract from the Rampart scandal. As the LAPD exerts more pressure on Brown, he retains legal counsel. Soon after, his ex-wives ask him to leave their houses so that they can sell them. Brown meets again with Hartshorn and mentions his need for cash. Hartshorn tips him off to a high stakes card game happening later that night at the Crystal Market.
While Brown surveils the card game, it is knocked off by two armed men. Brown pursues the men. He kills one of them and lets the other go. He then stages the scene to make it look like he was shot at. He realizes that a homeless man nicknamed "General" (Foster) witnessed the whole thing from his wheelchair. As another investigation into Brown heats up, he goes to a hotel and blackmails the concierge into giving him a room by threatening to arrest the concierge for running a prostitution ring in the hotel. Next, he blackmails a pharmacist into giving him an assortment of drugs.
When he meets with Hartshorn to give him a cut of the money from the card game, Brown asks for the source of Hartshorn's tip about the game. He suspects that he was set up again. Hartshorn refuses to name his source. Brown then meets with General in a parking lot to make sure that he will not testify about witnessing the shooting. The next day, an investigator with the District Attorney, Kyle Timkins (Cube) surveils Brown, who confronts him. Brown insists that he is not a racist, merely a misanthrope.
Brown grows increasingly paranoid and reliant on drugs as the pressure on him mounts. When he meets with Hartshorn again, he pulls a gun and accuses Hartshorn of setting him up. The elderly man scuffles with Brown a little bit and then has a heart attack. Instead of calling an ambulance, Brown leaves him to die. Back at the hotel, Brown's two daughters drop off some dry cleaning at his room, and he confesses to his younger daughter that everything she has heard about him is true.
Brown summons Timkins to a meeting and tapes a confession in front of him. He admits that he has been a dirty cop, and that in 1987, he killed a business acquaintance. He justified the murder because he knew the man was a serial rapist, which is why he got away with the extrajudicial killing. Timkins refuses the confession, insisting that he will arrest Brown for his most recent murder. The film ends with Brown revisiting his family and staring at his elder daughter on the front porch before disappearing into the night.

Tags: boring, murder

Review:
so far gone morally that redemption is no longer even a possibility.Writer James Ellroy (LA Confidential) and director Oren Moverman (The Messenger) present to us Officer Dave Brown, known to his fellow cops (and even his daughter) as "Date Rape" Dave.
This includes Robin Wright (who nearly matches Dave in the tortured soul department), Sigourney Weaver, Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Ice Cube, and Steve Buscemi.
The first hour feels like an Actor's Retreat as most every scene introduces another familiar face.Still, as terrific as Harrelson is, and as deep as the cast is, the film is just too one note and downbeat and hopeless to captivate a viewer.
Oren Moverman co-wrote the screenplay and directs.David Douglas Brown (Woody Harrelson in a one man powerhouse of a performance) is a veteran Los Angeles police officer, one of the last of the renegade cops who works out of the Rampart Division.
When Dave is caught on video brutally beating a man who accidentally ran into his police car he is faced with decisions that uncover not only his misdeeds but those of his fellow workers.The cast is filled with fine support (Jon Foster, Ice Cube, Steve Buscemi, et al) who have very little to do, but Harrelson is in every frame obnoxiously smoking cigarettes in a chain smoker fashion.
If that was the case, I'd certainly watch more because there is a lot there and the on screen talent is superb but as a stand alone film it's a massive let down and it goes absolutely nowhere at the end of 2 hours.Oh, and the sex club scene is particularly pointless, if any such scene can be.
Always watchable largely thanks to Harrelson--he's really quite good---but never quite believable film tracks a couple days in the life of a not exactly dirty, but not exactly clean cop.
To my mind, Harrelson's character isn't exactly dirty--we never witness him taking bribes, or stealing money, or looking the other way--he's just way overzealous in his pursuit of bad guys--actually scratch that--something happens at the mid-point that actually changes part of that last statement--but he still remains a clean(ish) cop trying to do right by society, even guys he claims to hate--he tries to give a fair shake to.
Meh whatever, film starts piling things on for Harrelson--having been caught with a cell phone cam beating up the 2nd guy (who was running away from him!) he's then put on suspension, and then he gets put under investigation which leads to...not a whole lot honestly.Film is a very shaggy dog story---Not much really happens throughout the movie other then just watching Woody Harrelson walk around and talk tough---he tries to bond with his teenage daughter, he tries to make it right with his ex wives, he tries to figure out what Internal Affairs wants to hear so he can get his job back, and yeah that's about it really.
That said, the film's well shot, its nicely acted and not just by Harrelson, the actress playing his teenage daughter i feel scores just as many points as Woody does in their handful of scenes together.
How much does that tell you?Co-written by James Ellroy and starring Woody Harrelson in the main role, 'Rampart' serves both as compelling crime melodrama and scorching character study.
End of story." Dave Brown (Harrelson) is an LAPD officer that who does things his own way.
Some of the talented character actors in the film like Ben Foster and Sigourney Weaver deliver solid performances but aren't on screen enough make any impact overall to the film.
Its A Magnificent Performance!'Rampart' Synopsis: Set in 1999 Los Angeles, veteran police officer Dave Brown, the last of the renegade cops, works to take care of his family, and struggles for his own survival.'Rampart' has some terrific moments.
No big message here--just a bit of trivia.Which is where I stand on Rampart, a dreary, artsy retread of Crash and a bunch of Wambaugh police stories, not to mention my favorite "burnt-out cop" movies, Madigan, Warning Shot, and, speaking of Joseph Wambaugh, The New Centurions.
I saw on the IMDb page for Rampart that the thing made about 1/12 of the cost, but it's all so earnest and true-to-life and artsy- friggin'-fartsy that only a red-state Neanderthal would mention that the movie made zilch, thereby sucking investor-dollars away from projects that may have had a chance to succeed.If you hadn't already noticed, I hate Woody Harrelson and indie- flop-piles-of-art-garbage.
In 1999, in Los Angeles, the brutal, racist and womanizer Police Officer David "Dave" Douglas Brown (Woody Harrelson) works at the Rampart Division.
Rampart (2011) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Woody Harrelson gives a tour de force performance playing David Brown, one of the last dirty cops still working for the LAPA in 1999.
If, on the other hand, you are a thinker, a people watcher, who wants to get inside a characters head, this film is brilliant.Harrelson is amazing and highly credible; the young lady who plays his elder daughter is also really good....so don't take any notice of the naysayers, just watch it, and prepare to plumb the depths of human despair..
Both the actor and, I assume, the pathologically disturbed Los Angeles cop that he plays in Oren Moverman's insufferably boring film "Rampart." Mr. Harrelson, a fine actor, has stranded himself in a blurry, muddled story about a Vietnam Vet-turned-cop with a controversial track record.
I was exhausted watching him act, and he looked exhausted playing the part.Mr. Harrelson's character, an L.A. cop of 24 years, starts propelling himself toward self-destruction when he beats a traffic offender within an inch of his life.
Woody Harrelson plays a corrupt cop named "Date Rape" Dave (and for those of you still reading, we continue) who got the moniker not from doing so but rather for allegedly killing someone who did.
For his second feature, Rampart, Moverman combines again with Harrelson (from a script he co-wrote with the legendary James Ellroy), but Woody's Officer Dave Brown is the furthest thing from morally sound.
A lot of corrupt police stories show us things within the police force or solely through our main character, but this film takes another unique step in really focusing on the ripple effect of Brown's darkness.
Brown is never out of place in any of these contexts, but Moverman doesn't seem to know how to bring them together properly.Of course there's one thing that even the fiercest detractors of the film can join hands in, and that's the praise of it's star, Woody Harrelson.
There aren't a lot of performances so in tune with their character like Harrelson is here and no matter how you feel about the film, there's no way that this performance isn't going to stick with you.
Especially for Woody Harrelson, who albeit was hateful as Rampart officer Dave Brown but blew me away with this performance.
This is the only place that the film actually has any energy at all and there is not enough of this to save this misfire of a movie.The all-star cast is wasted because individually the screen time is so short that they are not there long enough to make any lasting impression.
Unfortunately, RAMPART falls into the latter category.The film features a gaunt Woody Harrelson as your garden-variety corrupt cop, given over to adultery, racism, misogyny and about another dozen 'isms' and 'ogynies' while you're at it.
But this goes in another direction where it sorta builds a slight sympathy for the dirty cop named Dave Brown(Woody Harrelson).
"Rampart," starring Woody Harrleson and Robin Wright-Penn is set in Los Angles in 1999, right at the height of the notorious scandal that rocked the LAPD where numerous officers were implicated in cases of police brutality and misconduct.
One fact is crystal clear; Officer Brown is on a path of self destruction from the very start of the film.Harrelson, in the leading role, plays the the character of Veteran LAPD Officer Dave Brown.
His personal life crumbles even more with his tumultuous relationship a lawyer (Penn.) Officer Brown is suddenly thrust into the misconduct spotlight when a video camera catches him beating a person who just crashed into him while driving in his police cruiser.Harrison's performance is strong and gritty, but the film lacks overall momentum.
Woody Harrelson gives an outstanding performance as Dave Brown the latest screen manifestation of the rogue cop who patrols the city streets doling out justice on his own terms.
Even if you hate cops - It doesn't even end with any kind of closure - it's just plain stupid.Don't waste your time on this film - it's stupid, it has no story, and it's just distasteful in every way..
Set in 1999 Los Angeles, Rampart (Dir. Oren Moverman, 2012) follows a veteran police officer David Brown (Woody Harrelson) as he struggles to hold an unconventional family together after being caught on camera nearly beating a "criminal" to death.
This stubborn cop is stuck in the old ways of the police force, as many officers constantly remind him, and he is unable to adjust to the new expectancies of society.The camera work and editing style is one of the most noticeable things about Rampart.
With a cast containing Harrelson,Wright, Buschemi and Beatty it can't be all bad but it's a very bleak tale which we've seen in so many cop movies before.
"The most corrupt cop you've ever seen on screen" evokes the rich Hollywood tradition of amoral officers, Harrelson's character is nothing like the thugs in "Training Day" or "Bad Lieutenant".
His character is nasty, dirty, unpredictable and the last of its kind, it's like Training Day but without all the alpha male bravado nonsense that Denzel Washington's portrayal had in that film.However, even with Harrelson's brilliant central performance, Rampart is strangely compelling yet never much fun to watch.
The cast by the way is phenomenal, with Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Steve Buscemi, Robin Wright and Ice Cube all doing sterling work with minimal roles.As I've already said, Rampart can be difficult to watch but it is worth your time if you have the patience for it and want to see Woody Harrelson pulling an absolute blinder as the lead character..
The movie starring Woody Harrelson (well, there are rarely scenes without his presence) and Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi in supporting roles should ensure a catchy experience - but the reality is different.
They decided their follow up film was Rampart, another LA set cop film by James Ellroy, the writer of LA Confidential and Street Kings.Dave "Date Rape" Brown (Harrelson) is a corrupt officer in the LAPD: he is a racist, a sexist and a womaniser and is willing to beat offenders.
But one day Dave is filmed brutally beating a man and his world comes clashing down as he is investigated, sued, becomes paranoid and ends up losing his family.It is clear that Ellroy and Moverman wanted to make character piece and not a typical corrupt cop film: but what we ended up with is an unfocused mess.
The biggest example is during a legal meeting, featuring a Steve Buscemi cameo where the camera keeps panning from left to right for no good reason: just keep the camera still.There was the potential to make a better film, a film looking at how Dave operates, what actions does, whether he gets result, why he takes these actions, why is he racist, etc, a look at this rogue unit of the police, the investigation and legal action against Dave and this Rampart scandal which many people would not know much about (especially outside the USA).
Dave is a hateful character but there is a nasty undercurrent, from making Linda the lawyer (Robin Wright) being only issued in performing fellatio, his older daughter (Brie Larson) making a collage which prominently has the "C" and just the general environment and view of point the film presents.
Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) is a brutal Los Angeles police officer from the Rampart Division.
Hounded relentlessly by Internal Affairs, he thinks he's found redemption when he guns down two hoods who held up some local gangsters in a card game, but things are only about to get worse.Over the years, Woody Harrelson has become something of a cult actor, generally appearing in the more off beat, independent type films that may get rave reviews, but don't generally do a great shakes at the box office.
Though a better actor could have starred, a film like Rampart, another James Ellroy adaptation, is probably exactly the sort of thing he's suited for.
His only objective that may be of some kind of goodness is his attempt to establish a relationship with his two young daughters named Margaret and Helen who are living with his two former partners, but when he is videotaped whilst using illegal means against a suspect he is faced with charges that endangers his career and reduces his chances of ever gaining his children's trust and respect.Distinctly and engagingly directed by Israeli filmmaker Oren Moverman, this well-paced fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the protagonist's point of view, draws a dark and unsentimental portrayal of a uniformly corrupt LAPD veteran's cynical and inhumane conduct during a scandal within the Los Angeles Police Department in the US called the Rampart scandal which took place in the late 1990s.
While notable for it's naturalistic urban milieu depictions, fine cinematography by American cinematographer Bobby Bukowski, editing by film editor Jay Rabinowitz and use of sound, this character-driven and dialog-driven story where the core of the city of Los Angeles becomes a character in itself depicts an in-depth study of character.This sarcastic, unsettling and forebodingly atmospheric crime drama which is set in the City of Angels and where a descending man uses his authority as a policeman like a false preacher uses his bible contains some fine humane moments despite it's bleak undertones and is impelled and reinforced by it's cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, unrestrained dialog, the prominent acting performance by American actor Woody Harrelson and the fine supporting acting performances by American actress Robin Wright, American actress Brie Larson and American actress Sigourney Weaver.
The main character, played by Woody Harrelson, is a brutal, violent, and corrupt cop in 1999 Los Angeles.
The movie examines Dave's relationships with his two ex-wives and two daughters, his carousel of women, and his psychological decline as he slips deeper into the abyss and the walls start closing in on him.Woody Harrelson has evolved into a first-rate actor and he is a treat to watch here as the dirty cop who finds a way to justify his every crime.
If you are going to produce a film about the Rampart scandal (and dedicate the film to the "victims of Rampart") then you better make a film that accurately reflects the day to day existence of the cops you are targeting.Rampart's main character, Woody Harrelson, is a mess, like this movie.
He's only in his late 40's in the film!Then there is the bizarre personal story of Harrelson marrying sisters and fathering a daughter by each of them, getting divorced by one, yet continuing to live in the same house and move back and forth between the two sisters who have homes adjacent to one another!!!This movie could have been written much better with some sort of department advisers------- like real cops from that era.
Here we have the multi-talented Woody Harrelson, in the role of a psycho LA cop, flanked by great names such as Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi, Ned Beatty and Robin Wright, in a film that, for all intents and purposes, offers great material and a thrilling story.
Directed by Oren Moverman (the excellent Oscar-nominated The Messenger), written by James Ellroy (the fantastic Oscar winning L.A. Confidential) and staring the Oscar nominated Woody Harrelson and Sigourney Weaver, Rampart should be a stunning film.It isn't.It's a turgid, leaden waste of two hours.Harrelson gives a solid performance as bitter, angry, violent L.A. cop, Dave 'Date Rape' Brown but it isn't enough to redeem a film than would be better pitched as a cure for insomnia.
Woody Harrelson's performance is slightly less manic than those of Harvey Keitel and Nicholas Cage, but it's hard to feel much sympathy for rogue cop Dave Brown in his downward spiral.
The cast in this movie is great , with a solid leading actor Woody Harrelson to depict Date Rape Dave.
You feel that the movie wants to take its story to certain places at times but it just never quite gets there.It might had all worked if this was some sort of action-thriller, in which the cop Woody Harrelson turns rogue and takes on the street punks.
Woody Harrelson, even though his character is despicable, gives away one fine performance and shows he's still more than capable to play a lead role and carry a movie.
Woody Harrelson gives the performance of his life as Dave "Date Rape" Brown and somehow makes us sympathize with a character who is truly one of the most corrupt and decadent police characters put on film.
Woody Harrelson gives the performance of his life as Dave "Date Rape" Brown and somehow makes us sympathize with a character who is truly one of the most corrupt and decadent police characters put on film.
Right after watching 'Rampart', I was pretty impressed by Woody Harrelson's performance as a rogue LAPD cop circa 1999.
I'm going to assume that most of the implausible moments in the film (and they are legion), are attributable to Mr. Moverman and not McEllroy, who is responsible for such gritty, realistic neo-noirs as 'L.A. Confidential'.Rampart really has no connection to the late 90s LA police scandals of the same name, and is only used as a backdrop as we follow Woody Harrelson's rogue Police Officer, Dave Brown on the crime-ridden streets of LA.
I think Woody Harrelson may be the one working actor right now who looks like he could really be a cop.