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The beat goes on via Ebert- WSJ-Rolling Stone
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FROM:
O
omoverman@aol.com
DATE:
2012-02-16 23:34:08
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O
omoverman@aol.com
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PROCESSED
FRIENDS,
I promise, I will stop soon. But the movement keeps moving...
And I'm assuming you've made many new friends since my last email.
Send them over.
Please spread the word and read the great reviews at the bottom of this
email (did you expect me to send you the bad one?) It's all word of mouth
from hereon in...
Many thanks.
O
RAMPART EXPANDS THIS WEEKEND:
NEW YORK CITY
_Landmark Sunshine_
(http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/newyork/sunshinecinema.htm) — 143 East Houston Street, New York, NY
_Lincoln Center_ (http://filmlinc.com/) — 144 West 65th Street, New York,
NY
_AMC Empire 25_ (http://www.amctheatres.com/Empire/) — 234 West 42nd St.,
New York, NY
BOSTON
_Kendall Square Cinema_
(http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/boston/kendallsquarecinema.htm) — One Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA
CHICAGO
_AMC River East 21_ (http://www.amctheatres.com/RiverEast/) — 322 East
Illinois Street, Chicago, IL
_Century 12 Evanston/CinéArts 6 and XD_
(http://www.fandango.com/century12evanstoncinéarts6andxd_aaozm/theaterpage) — 1715 Maple Avenue Evanston, IL
DALLAS
_Cinemark West Plano 20_
(http://www.cinemark.com/theatre-detail.aspx?node_id=1521) — 3800 Dallas Parkway, Plano, TX
_Angelika Film Center_
(http://angelikafilmcenter.com/angelika_index.asp?hID=7915) — 5321 East Mockingbird Lane, Dallas, TX
LOS ANGELES
_Arclight Cinemas_ (https://www.arclightcinemas.com/) — 6360 W. Sunset
Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
_The Landmark_
(http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/losangeles/thelandmark.htm) — 10850 West Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
_Laemmle Noho 7_ (http://www.laemmle.com/viewtheatre.php?thid=22) — 5240
Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA
_Century 10 Downtown_
(http://www.fandango.com/century10downtown_aajay/theaterpage) — 555 East Main Street Ventura, CA
_Laemmle Playhouse 7_ (http://www.laemmle.com/viewtheatre.php?thid=6) —
673 East Colorado Boulevard Pasadena, CA
_Century Stadium 25 and XD_
(http://www.fandango.com/centuryhuntingtonbeachandxd_aattf/theaterpage) — 7777 Edinger Ave #133 Huntington Beach, CA
_Century Huntington Beach and XD_
(http://www.fandango.com/centuryhuntingtonbeachandxd_aattf/theaterpage) — 5240 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA
_Edwards University Town Center 6_
(http://www.fandango.com/edwardsuniversitytowncenter6_aabhi/theaterpage) — 4245 Campus Drive Irvine, CA
_Regency Rancho Niguel 8_
(http://www.regencymovies.com/main.php?theaterId=21) — 25471 Rancho Niguel Road Laguna Niguel, CA 92677
_Century Theatres @ The River and XD_
(http://www.regencymovies.com/main.php?theaterId=21) — 71800 California 111 Rancho Mirage, CA
SAN FRANCISCO
_Embarcadero Center Cinema_
(http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/sanfrancisco/embarcaderocentercinema.htm) — One Embarcadero Center, San
Francisco, CA
Everybody's friend, Roger Ebert gives Rampart 4 out of 4 stars saying:
Rampart
BY ROGER EBERT / February 15, 2012
Cast & Credits
Dave Brown _Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDa
te=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Joan Confrey _Sigourney Weaver_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Sigourney%20Weaver&Class=%&Fr
omDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Barbara _Cynthia Nixon_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Cynthia%20Nixon&Class=%&FromDate=1915
0101&ToDate=20121231)
Catherine _Anne Heche_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Anne%20Heche&Class=%&FromDate=19150101
&ToDate=20121231)
Linda Fentress _Robin Wright_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Robin%20Wright&Class=%&FromDate
=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Kyle Timkins _Ice Cube_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Ice%20Cube&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&
ToDate=20121231)
Millennium Entertainment presents a film directed by Oren Moverman.
Written by James Ellroy and Moverman.
Running time:
112 minutes.
Rated R (for pervasive language, sexual content and some violence).
(http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php)
_Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDate=19150101
&ToDate=20121231) is leaner in "Rampart," the skin tight over the skull,
the jawline defiant. His eyes are busy. He is a cop in the Los Angeles
police district that became notorious in 1999 as a cesspool of corruption, but
this man takes corruption with him wherever he goes. The movie is co-written
by the unsurpassed crime writer James Ellroy, who no doubt knows enough
stories about Rampart to write a dozen movies, but his inspiration here is to
make this cop a stand-alone character study, isolated within himself. He
doesn't require the reprehensible environment of Rampart. He's self-fueled.
Harrelson is an ideal actor for the role. Especially in tensely wound-up
movies like this, he implies that he's looking at everything and then
watching himself looking. His character, Dave Brown, has no moral center, but he
has the survival instincts of a rat, and I say that with all due respect for
rats. He always likes to know the way out of a tight corner. He knows an
angle he can play or a squirm he can call on.
Why is he this way? That question helps explain why the movie is so
absorbing, because there is no answer. "Rampart" lacks the usual plot engines
behind crime films, in which motivation comes from money, lust or revenge.
Brown behaves in this film primarily just to do bad things.
He reminds me of one of the most evil characters in American fiction,
Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, a man who likes to torture
and kill for no other reason than simply to cause pain. The Harrelson of
"Rampart" could play Judge Holden, and not many actors could.
He is an overt racist. He has such contempt for women he cannot always be
bothered to use them sexually. He was married to two women (_Anne Heche_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&Sear
chType=1&q=Anne%20Heche&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) and
_Cynthia Nixon_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Cynthia%20Nixon&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=
20121231) ) who are sisters, and apparently this meant so little to all of
them that they live in houses next to one another. There was no emotional
commitment there for them to engage. He has a daughter by each and is said
to have once murdered a rapist because of his feelings for his daughters.
Only with a man like Brown would you suspect that was an excuse; more likely,
he got started killing the man and didn't feel like stopping.
It's that feeling that seems to empower Brown when he does the last thing
Rampart district needs in 1999. Eight years after the brutality against
Rodney King, Brown is videotaped while beating a suspect. He seems to approach
this task like a skilled workman performing a job he loves. Recently
there's been a movement to make videotaping of police officers illegal. That
would get Dave Brown's vote.
This time he doesn't seem to have an escape route ready. The district
attorney's office sees him as an ideal target, and _Sigourney Weaver_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType
=1&q=Sigourney%20Weaver&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) is
finely focused as an assistant DA who has him in her sights. He also makes the
error of trying to pick up a defense attorney (_Robin Wright_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=
Robin%20Wright&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) ) in just the
wrong way at just the wrong time. And he casually insults a black investigator
for Internal Affairs (_Ice Cube_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Ice%20Cube&Class=%&FromDate=
19150101&ToDate=20121231) ).
"Rampart" is deeply embedded in Los Angeles in the summertime, every day a
reminder of the desert that waits patiently to take back the land stolen
from it by sprinkler systems. It is hot, the sun is blinding, Brown is
sweating, he feels rotten. You cannot live forever with amorality and sadism
eating away at you. Even other immoral people around you stand back, because
they recognize themselves and fear to go that far.
"Rampart" was directed and co-written with Ellroy by Oren Moverman, whose
directorial debut was "_The Messenger_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=REVIEWS01&TITLESearch=The%20Messenger&ToDate=
20121231) " (2009). He was nominated for an Oscar for that screenplay. It
also starred _Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromD
ate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) , playing an Army veteran whose job is to
inform the next of kin that a soldier has been killed. He's training his new
partner on the job and advises him not to take it personally: Don't have
physical contact with anyone, let alone hug them. Better for you, better for
them. These are their lives. They need the news, not a new best friend.
In that film, Harrelson's character turns out to have feelings after all.
He's such a versatile actor, able to point one way and act in another. We
know he can do that, and maybe that's why he's so fascinating in "Rampart."
Is it really possible for a man to be as evil and indifferent as Dave
Brown, and be empty inside? Apparently so. What made him that way? Maybe nothing
did. Maybe it's just the way he is.
_The Wall Street Journal_ (http://online.wsj.com/home-page) Arts &
Entertainment
'Rampart'
by John Anderson
"I'm not a racist," says Dave Brown. "I hate all people equally." You
believe half of what he says and, as inhabited by Woody Harrelson, all of what
he is: A misanthropic street cop in 1999 Los Angeles who is smoking,
drinking and not-eating himself to death, brutalizing suspects and, thanks to
others just like him, watching the sun set on his special brand of community
policing.
They say westerns are out, but writer-director Oren Moverman has made one,
in the tradition of "Shane," "The Gunfighter" and "Lonely Are the Brave,"
stories about men who see the writing on the wall but refuse to heed it.
With Mr. Harrelson, Mr. Moverman has created an antihero of epic proportions
and indiscretions. Nicknamed "Date Rape" for having avoided prosecution for
the murder of a serial rapist, Dave lives next door to his two ex-wives,
who happen to be sisters (Cynthia Nixon, Anne Heche) and whose daughters are
both sisters and cousins (Brie Larson, Sammy Boyarsky). Having failed the
bar exam for an unspecified but probably perverse reason, Dave can thrust
and parry with any bureaucrat the city throws at him (Sigourney Weaver,
Steve Buscemi). They can't touch him. To get Dave, they'd have to capture him on
video, beating a black motorist with a blackjack. Which is precisely what
happens.
The grossly underrated Mr. Harrelson looks menacingly gaunt throughout, and
recaptures the intensity he brought to Mr. Moverman's "The Messenger."
Framing Dave against the azure Los Angeles sky, or a taco joint, the
Israeli-born director puts a fresh spin on Old West-style rugged individualism, and
it isn't pretty. But, like Dave's blackjack, it earns our attention.
_Rolling Stone _ (http://www.rollingstone.com/)
Rolling Stone: star rating
3.5 out of 4
(mailto:?subject=Rampart&body=http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/rampart-20120210)
(http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/rampart-20120210?print=true)
By Peter Travers
As Dave Brown, a sexist, racist, trigger-tempered police officer carving
out his own definition of justice on the mean streets of 1999 Los Angeles,
Woody Harrelson climbs to the top of the acting mountain. It's a monumental
portrayal of a cop in meltdown – bruisingly brilliant and coiled to spring.
Director Oren Moverman (_The Messenger_
(http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-messenger-20091112) ), who co-wrote the script with James
Ellroy, is a filmmaker with rare skills. He can let us inhale the toxic
atmosphere of crime and corruption and then startle us with unexpected feeling.
Dave has spent nearly 25 years on the force doing things his way, bending
rules out of shape as a matter of course. His record is shadowed by the
killing of a serial rapist that won him the nickname "Date Rape." But the
department can no longer turn a blind eye when Dave is caught on camera beating a
suspect. Comparisons to the Rodney King incident fill the air, something the
department can't abide in light of a recent scandal involving more than 70
cops in the Rampart division charged with brutality, evidence tampering
and cover-ups. Dave offers no apologies: "I am not a racist. Fact is, I hate
all people equally." Assistant district attorney Joan Confrey (Sigourney
Weaver, radiating fire and ice) wants Dave's head on a platter.
In the hands of a lesser director, that would be that. But Moverman cuts
deeper. Without going soft, he refuses to let us ignore the humanity in Dave.
And so we see this cop at home with his wife. Make that two wives. Anne
Heche and Cynthia Nixon play the sisters Dave married and divorced in turn,
having a daughter with each. Dave is fine sharing the same household, but
the women are getting fed up. Dave is allergic to true connection. Yet we get
the attraction – such is the force of the cop's appealing-appalling vibe.
Harrelson dropped 25 pounds to make Dave a lean, mean sex machine. And it
pays off in magnetism. At a bar, Dave picks up lawyer Linda Fentress (Robin
Wright), and we see disaster coming. It does. But the erotic sparks are
undeniable.
Moverman is merciless in laying out Dave's faults. The great
cinematographer Bobby Bukowski uses the hard blaze of the L.A. sun to put Dave under a
microscope that even investigator Kyle Timkins (Ice Cube) can't match. And
as Dave tangles with a homeless informant (Harrelson's Messenger co-star Ben
Foster) and his ex-cop guru (a terrific Ned Beatty), we understand that
the trajectory of Dave's life is nowhere but down, down, down.
Yup, it could have been a bucket of bleak. But the electric talent of
Harrelson and Moverman is too exciting to be anything but exhilarating. These
two are playing a game of ferocity and feeling that makes others look like
rank amateurs. No chance you'll forget Rampart. Only stupid Oscar voters do
that. Thanks to Harrelson and Moverman, this baby stings.
Read more:
_http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/rampart-20120210#ixzz1mafPBIxp_
(http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/rampart-20120210#ixzz1mafPBIxp)
Rampart (R)
Ebert: Users: You:_Rate this movie right now_
(javascript:NewWindow('300','200','/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=userrate&LinkID=93258&Title=Rampart'))
Rampart
BY ROGER EBERT / February 15, 2012
Cast & Credits
Dave Brown _Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDa
te=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Joan Confrey _Sigourney Weaver_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Sigourney%20Weaver&Class=%&Fr
omDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Barbara _Cynthia Nixon_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Cynthia%20Nixon&Class=%&FromDate=1915
0101&ToDate=20121231)
Catherine _Anne Heche_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1
&q=Anne%20Heche&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Linda Fentress _Robin Wright_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Robin%20Wright&Class=%&FromDate
=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Kyle Timkins _Ice Cube_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Ice%20Cube&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&
ToDate=20121231)
Millennium Entertainment presents a film directed by Oren Moverman.
Written by James Ellroy and Moverman. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated R (for
pervasive language, sexual content and some violence).
_Printer-friendly_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120215/REVIEWS/120219988&template=printart) »
_E-mail this to a friend_
(javascript:NewWindow(400,300,'/apps/pbcs.dll/art_tips?Date=20120215&Category=REVIEWS&ArtNo=120219988&SiteData=EB&SectionCat=
AN');) »
(http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php)
_Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDate=19150101
&ToDate=20121231) is leaner in "Rampart," the skin tight over the skull,
the jawline defiant. His eyes are busy. He is a cop in the Los Angeles
police district that became notorious in 1999 as a cesspool of corruption, but
this man takes corruption with him wherever he goes. The movie is
co-written by the unsurpassed crime writer James Ellroy, who no doubt knows enough
stories about Rampart to write a dozen movies, but his inspiration here is
to make this cop a stand-alone character study, isolated within himself. He
doesn't require the reprehensible environment of Rampart. He's self-fueled.
Harrelson is an ideal actor for the role. Especially in tensely wound-up
movies like this, he implies that he's looking at everything and then
watching himself looking. His character, Dave Brown, has no moral center, but he
has the survival instincts of a rat, and I say that with all due respect
for rats. He always likes to know the way out of a tight corner. He knows an
angle he can play or a squirm he can call on.
Why is he this way? That question helps explain why the movie is so
absorbing, because there is no answer. "Rampart" lacks the usual plot engines
behind crime films, in which motivation comes from money, lust or revenge.
Brown behaves in this film primarily just to do bad things.
He reminds me of one of the most evil characters in American fiction,
Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, a man who likes to torture
and kill for no other reason than simply to cause pain. The Harrelson of
"Rampart" could play Judge Holden, and not many actors could.
He is an overt racist. He has such contempt for women he cannot always be
bothered to use them sexually. He was married to two women (_Anne Heche_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&Sea
rchType=1&q=Anne%20Heche&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) and
_Cynthia Nixon_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Cynthia%20Nixon&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate
=20121231) ) who are sisters, and apparently this meant so little to all of
them that they live in houses next to one another. There was no emotional
commitment there for them to engage. He has a daughter by each and is said
to have once murdered a rapist because of his feelings for his daughters.
Only with a man like Brown would you suspect that was an excuse; more
likely, he got started killing the man and didn't feel like stopping.
It's that feeling that seems to empower Brown when he does the last thing
Rampart district needs in 1999. Eight years after the brutality against
Rodney King, Brown is videotaped while beating a suspect. He seems to approach
this task like a skilled workman performing a job he loves. Recently
there's been a movement to make videotaping of police officers illegal. That
would get Dave Brown's vote.
This time he doesn't seem to have an escape route ready. The district
attorney's office sees him as an ideal target, and _Sigourney Weaver_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType
=1&q=Sigourney%20Weaver&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) is
finely focused as an assistant DA who has him in her sights. He also makes the
error of trying to pick up a defense attorney (_Robin Wright_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=
Robin%20Wright&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) ) in just the
wrong way at just the wrong time. And he casually insults a black investigator
for Internal Affairs (_Ice Cube_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Ice%20Cube&Class=%&FromDate=
19150101&ToDate=20121231) ).
"Rampart" is deeply embedded in Los Angeles in the summertime, every day a
reminder of the desert that waits patiently to take back the land stolen
from it by sprinkler systems. It is hot, the sun is blinding, Brown is
sweating, he feels rotten. You cannot live forever with amorality and sadism
eating away at you. Even other immoral people around you stand back, because
they recognize themselves and fear to go that far.
"Rampart" was directed and co-written with Ellroy by Oren Moverman, whose
directorial debut was "_The Messenger_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=REVIEWS01&TITLESe
arch=The%20Messenger&ToDate=20121231) " (2009). He was nominated for an Oscar for that screenplay. It
also starred _Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDa
te=19150101&ToDate=20121231) , playing an Army veteran whose job is to
inform the next of kin that a soldier has been killed. He's training his new
partner on the job and advises him not to take it personally: Don't have
physical contact with anyone, let alone hug them. Better for you, better for
them. These are their lives. They need the news, not a new best friend.
In that film, Harrelson's character turns out to have feelings after all.
He's such a versatile actor, able to point one way and act in another. We
know he can do that, and maybe that's why he's so fascinating in "Rampart."
Is it really possible for a man to be as evil and indifferent as Dave
Brown, and be empty inside? Apparently so. What made him that way? Maybe
nothing did. Maybe it's just the way he is.
Rampart (R)
Ebert: Users: You:_Rate this movie right now_
(javascript:NewWindow('300','200','/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=userrate&LinkID=93258&Title=Rampart'))
Rampart
BY ROGER EBERT / February 15, 2012
Cast & Credits
Dave Brown _Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDa
te=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Joan Confrey _Sigourney Weaver_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Sigourney%20Weaver&Class=%&Fr
omDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Barbara _Cynthia Nixon_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Cynthia%20Nixon&Class=%&FromDate=1915
0101&ToDate=20121231)
Catherine _Anne Heche_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Anne%20Heche&Class=%&FromDate=19150101
&ToDate=20121231)
Linda Fentress _Robin Wright_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Robin%20Wright&Class=%&FromDate
=19150101&ToDate=20121231)
Kyle Timkins _Ice Cube_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Ice%20Cube&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&
ToDate=20121231)
Millennium Entertainment presents a film directed by Oren Moverman.
Written by James Ellroy and Moverman. Running time: 112 minutes. Rated R (for
pervasive language, sexual content and some violence).
_Printer-friendly_ (http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll
/article?AID=/20120215/REVIEWS/120219988&template=printart) »
_E-mail this to a friend_
(javascript:NewWindow(400,300,'/apps/pbcs.dll/art_tips?Date=20120215&Category=REVIEWS&ArtNo=120219988&SiteData=EB&SectionCat=
AN');) »
(http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php)
_Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDate=19150101
&ToDate=20121231) is leaner in "Rampart," the skin tight over the skull,
the jawline defiant. His eyes are busy. He is a cop in the Los Angeles
police district that became notorious in 1999 as a cesspool of corruption, but
this man takes corruption with him wherever he goes. The movie is
co-written by the unsurpassed crime writer James Ellroy, who no doubt knows enough
stories about Rampart to write a dozen movies, but his inspiration here is
to make this cop a stand-alone character study, isolated within himself. He
doesn't require the reprehensible environment of Rampart. He's self-fueled.
Harrelson is an ideal actor for the role. Especially in tensely wound-up
movies like this, he implies that he's looking at everything and then
watching himself looking. His character, Dave Brown, has no moral center, but he
has the survival instincts of a rat, and I say that with all due respect
for rats. He always likes to know the way out of a tight corner. He knows an
angle he can play or a squirm he can call on.
Why is he this way? That question helps explain why the movie is so
absorbing, because there is no answer. "Rampart" lacks the usual plot engines
behind crime films, in which motivation comes from money, lust or revenge.
Brown behaves in this film primarily just to do bad things.
He reminds me of one of the most evil characters in American fiction,
Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, a man who likes to torture
and kill for no other reason than simply to cause pain. The Harrelson of
"Rampart" could play Judge Holden, and not many actors could.
He is an overt racist. He has such contempt for women he cannot always be
bothered to use them sexually. He was married to two women (_Anne Heche_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&Sea
rchType=1&q=Anne%20Heche&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) and
_Cynthia Nixon_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Cynthia%20Nixon&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate
=20121231) ) who are sisters, and apparently this meant so little to all of
them that they live in houses next to one another. There was no emotional
commitment there for them to engage. He has a daughter by each and is said
to have once murdered a rapist because of his feelings for his daughters.
Only with a man like Brown would you suspect that was an excuse; more
likely, he got started killing the man and didn't feel like stopping.
It's that feeling that seems to empower Brown when he does the last thing
Rampart district needs in 1999. Eight years after the brutality against
Rodney King, Brown is videotaped while beating a suspect. He seems to approach
this task like a skilled workman performing a job he loves. Recently
there's been a movement to make videotaping of police officers illegal. That
would get Dave Brown's vote.
This time he doesn't seem to have an escape route ready. The district
attorney's office sees him as an ideal target, and _Sigourney Weaver_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType
=1&q=Sigourney%20Weaver&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) is
finely focused as an assistant DA who has him in her sights. He also makes the
error of trying to pick up a defense attorney (_Robin Wright_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=
Robin%20Wright&Class=%&FromDate=19150101&ToDate=20121231) ) in just the
wrong way at just the wrong time. And he casually insults a black investigator
for Internal Affairs (_Ice Cube_ (http://rogerebe
rt.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Ice%20Cube&Class=%&FromDate=
19150101&ToDate=20121231) ).
"Rampart" is deeply embedded in Los Angeles in the summertime, every day a
reminder of the desert that waits patiently to take back the land stolen
from it by sprinkler systems. It is hot, the sun is blinding, Brown is
sweating, he feels rotten. You cannot live forever with amorality and sadism
eating away at you. Even other immoral people around you stand back, because
they recognize themselves and fear to go that far.
"Rampart" was directed and co-written with Ellroy by Oren Moverman, whose
directorial debut was "_The Messenger_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=REVIEWS01&TITLESearch=The%20Messenger&ToDate=2
0121231) " (2009). He was nominated for an Oscar for that screenplay. It
also starred _Woody Harrelson_
(http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/classifieds?category=search1&SearchType=1&q=Woody%20Harrelson&Class=%&FromDa
te=19150101&ToDate=20121231) , playing an Army veteran whose job is to
inform the next of kin that a soldier has been killed. He's training his new
partner on the job and advises him not to take it personally: Don't have
physical contact with anyone, let alone hug them. Better for you, better for
them. These are their lives. They need the news, not a new best friend.
In that film, Harrelson's character turns out to have feelings after all.
He's such a versatile actor, able to point one way and act in another. We
know he can do that, and maybe that's why he's so fascinating in "Rampart."
Is it really possible for a man to be as evil and indifferent as Dave
Brown, and be empty inside? Apparently so. What made him that way? Maybe
nothing did. Maybe it's just the way he is.
Dive in - Rampart in theaters - check your local listings
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