Rampart

2012 • 107 minutes

About this movie

At the heart of Oren Moverman's Rampart is a riveting parable about what happens to a man who refuses to change, even when change is the only thing that can save him. That man is Dave Brown, played by two-time Academy Award® nominee Woody Harrelson. Though the film is set in the 1990s, when scandal rocked the LAPD's Rampart division, the film hones in on a single fictional cop: Dave Brown, a man who has taken the "no guts, no glory" American mythos to heart, without questioning what it is doing to him and those he holds dear. He is a cop whose personal life is propelled into a dizzying downward spiral when he comes under suspicion for roughing up a suspect. More than just a police officer who plays things fast and loose, Brown exposes the inner workings of a certain type of personality everyone recognizes around them, a personality very much part of American culture, yet not often examined. He is the kind of man inexorably drawn to authority and power, yet seems destined to abuse it; a man who has dreams of being a great masculine hero, yet is beholden to women; who has undeniable charm, yet whose stubborn refusal to take responsibility for his actions becomes a destructive force against family, community and ultimately himself.

MPAA Rating: R for pervasive language, sexual content and some violence

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster and Sigourney Weaver

Ratings and reviews

This is not an action flick, so don't expect any. This is a movie about the choices we make and how it affects the people we love and those in our lives. Woody's character made some bad choices and as a result he hurt people he loves. He was abandoned by people that matter the most because he lived his life selfishly. He was a dirty cop and reached the end of his rope before he was willing to admit it to himself and others. We ended up hating this movie because it was a great story and good acting, but ended abruptly with no closure on any of it.

There is no redeeming quality to this movie. It is dis-jointed and fractured beyond belief. Every possible uglyness of humanity is expressed in senseless meandering of scenes from one to the next. Looks like a student director and camera man shot the film.The best thing I can advise is not waste your time on this movie. If it were possible to give it a - zero rating I would.

The movie started off with promise. A corrupt cop who felt he was doing the right thing at certain times. He struggles with maintaining any meaningful connection to his family. Those 3 sentences sums up the movie. The movie didn't do anything well. The writing wasn't great because there was no climax or conclusion; plot holes were opened and never filled. The directing was not well done as the movie didn't leave the viewer with any satisfaction or reason to remember the name of it. This is a definite skip, a movie that had potential but no direction in mind based off of writing and directing.