Rampart (15)
Certificate:
Dir:
Oren Moverman
Year:
2011
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Length:
108 mins
Cast:
Woody Harrelson, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi, Robin Wright, Ned Beatty
Format:
Digital
Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers) gives a ferocious, career-best performance in Oren Moverman's (The Messenger) incendiary cop drama, comparable in sleazy style to Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant.
Harrelson is LAPD officer Dave Brown, a Vietnam vet and Rampart precinct cop whose morally dubious policing fails to trouble his conscience. But after he's caught on tape beating a motorist, he becomes a symbol of police brutality in an already overheated city; and must hustle hard to survive as various factions bid to take him down.
The intelligent, complex script (by Moverman and crime writer James Ellroy) is set in 1999, a recent low point for LAPD corruption and violence; creating a realistic yet seductively noir-ish LA background for Dave's self-destructive descent.
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