A few more movies like this and the LAPD might get a bad reputation. Woody Harrelson’s character, Dave Brown, instantly dislikable yet, by the end, a bit pitiable, is the unclean cop in a film that starts out seeming something like Training Day. As Brown, nicknamed “date rape,” but not for the reason you think, instructs his own trainee on the ways of controlling “wetbacks” and other riff raff, she asks if he isn’t afraid of getting a “128” (sanction for misbehavior). “Illegal is just a sick bird,” he replies. But the recruit moves on, and the Brown’s misconduct catches up the modern way, by being caught on video. Arrogant charm is enough to get a lawyer (Robin Wright) into his bed, but seems less likely to win over Internal Affairs. A retired cop buddy (Ned Beatty) may or may not be helping. And his two exes—sisters—and two daughters (one by each sister) are losing patience with him. (The high school-age daughter, especially.)
Unlike most cop films, this is very much a character study, not an action thriller. The director is Oren Moverman, who previously directed Harrelson in The Messenger, but the low-key realism, and no doubt much of the gritty, witty dialogue comes partly by way of cowriter James Ellroy. Ellroy wrote the book on corrupt Los Angeles cops, several in fact; one was L.A. Confidential. (Rampart is an L.A. police division involved in a real misconduct scandal in the late 1990s, but this story is narrowly focused.) Wisely, the movie doesn’t drift into obvious moralizing like Training Day. There’s no Ethan Hawke character to serve as audience surrogate. Brown’s family serves some of the same function, but mostly this is about a man who has lived by his own rules slowly coming to grips with the cost. By the end, that theme has been reiterated to the point of near redundancy. Still, Moverman is not heavy handed, and the movie stops before depicting an ending that is by then, broadly obvious.
viewed at Ritz Bourse 2/16/12 7:30 pm [PFS screening] and reviewed 2/16/12
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