Rampart opens with Officer Dave “Date Rape” (a nickname he earned when he — allegedly — murdered a serial date-rapist) Brown (Woody Harrelson, Friends With Benefits) driving around a Los Angeles neighborhood in his radio car, smoking a cigarette (as he’s constantly doing) and peering out from behind sunglasses like a commander surveying hostile territory.
It’s no accident that, between the shades and the shaved head, he looks strikingly similar to Col. Kilgore, Robert Duvall’s fearsome commander in Apocalypse Now — all he needs to complete the impersonation is a cowboy hat and an assault rifle.
It’s probably not a comparison that would offend him, either. “Illegal is just a sick bird,” he tells a rookie cop. “This is a military occupation, kid. Emergency law.”
Rampart, set in 1999 Los Angeles, is based on the same LAPD corruption scandal that inspired the great FX series The Shield, and it follows a roughly similar (though understandably compressed) arc, as well as sharing a grimily realistic handheld aesthetic.
Harrelson essentially plays the role Michael Chiklis (No Ordinary Family) played on TV (although it’s important to not overstate the familiarities — they’re merely inspired by the same event), that of a cop whose “us vs. them” attitude pushes him to take extreme, inarguably illegal measures to secure the devastated neighborhoods he patrols — all the while enriching and protecting himself.
Harrelson goes farther than Chiklis, however, pushing his character toward levels of repugnance in two hours that it took Chiklis seven seasons to reach. All his relationships eventually descend into simple antagonism; he’s the kind of man who believes the rules apply to everyone but himself. He’s emotionally abusive, jokingly (but not unconvincingly) calls himself a “fascist,” drinks too much, smokes too much, takes drugs — you imagine he probably doesn’t smell too good.
It’s not a fresh character — there would be countless examples of similar ones even without mentioning The Shield — and Oren Moverman’s (The Messenger) direction is hit-and-miss — the film has an excellent sense of place, but there are times you wish he would invest in a tripod — but the occasional visual miscue (like one conversation where the camera inexplicably won’t stop spinning) can’t sink it. Harrelson’s convincingly and daringly ugly performance, which never once asks for sympathy, along with the sharp script by Moverman and crime novelist James Ellroy, elevate it above the pack.
VERDICT: Unoriginal but well-written, Rampart succeeds thanks to a flawless lead performance from Woody Harrelson.
rgifford@umbdk.com
