Hard as it is to believe, offscreen Woody Harrelson purveys an image of a loose, nearly slacker vibe, while onscreen he lays down a sense that he clearly knows how to get down to business. In the dark yet highly perceptive Rampart, Harrelson portrays the rogue cop Dave Brown, a misogynist, racist, intensely self-contained and hardheaded throwback to the times when police got things done without much regard for the rule of law or political correctness. The milieu is Los Angeles, 1990s, post-Rodney King. (Rampart is the police division in central Los Angeles.) After Brown is caught on video pursuing and beating an Hispanic ruffian who plowed into his police car, he’s asked to resign by assistant D. A. Sigourney Weaver. It seems there’s a backdrop of an underway massive investigation against the Rampart unit and Brown senses he’s being targeted as the perfect fall guy to take the heat off the police department at large. So he resists.
His meetings with police higher ups and Weaver will crack you up. They perfectly present Harrelson with the chance to show acting chops as the underdog par excellence, a reprise of his playing Hustler magazine’s Larry Flynt in the 1996 film, The People Versus Larry Flynt. Spouting hyper-articulate, yet non sequiter-filled monologues, the resilient Brown continually frustrates his superiors with mouthy insults, tone-deaf legal threats, and often accurate if grandiose assessments of their own motives. Then he retreats to his police car to commit yet another over-the-top blunder or two. Eventually this starts to wear on him. There’s only so much solace in booze and promiscuous sex (here Robin Wright among others) when the pressure is on.
Home leaves little room for refuge. His teenage daughters live in adjoining apartments with their Moms (Cynthia Nixon and the always talented Anne Heche), who are incidentally sisters. Brown crashes with them eenie-meanie-miney-mo-style until he wears out his welcome. Given his personality, that isn’t too long. Then, when his luck runs low and he needs a place to stay, he merely shakes down a hotel employee. When he needs pain killers, he blackmails a pharmacist. When he needs money, he contacts a retired cop ( an excellent Ned Beatty), who was a pal of his Dad, also a cop on the force. Looking for a scheme from Beatty, Brown starts his skid into paranoia. It’ll eventually include Wright as well. While he’s got every reason to be paranoid in the first place, Brown’s defensive instincts are brought up several notches. He begins to show the stress, yet he still retains a tenacity that is ironically intoxicating. Harrelson, who also portrayed an equally nerves-of-steel military man in the excellent The Messenger, for which he garnered a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominaton, somehow makes you like Brown despite his being such a total scumbag. He’s curiously like the kid in high school we knew we shouldn’t hang around but couldn’t help ourselves.
Director Oren Moverman (also The Messenger and also an Oscar nomination, for screenwriting) works in an often impressionistic, artsy vein, which further brings into relief the harshness of Brown’s predicament and his fascinating, compelling, yet also tragic response. Co-written by the novelist James Ellroy (L. A. Confidential), the film zings with a plausibility for time and place and, above all, character. Humor rears its head, often married with squeamishness. Moverman and Ellroy serve as perfect catalysts to bring Harrelson’s best to the fore. Physically he’s all pumped-up bluster. Emotionally, an unfettered yet hapless “piece of work.” The film gives one the inescapable sense of honesty in its portrayal of Brown. Not judging him or explaining his motives, it’s an unqualified triumph in getting us under his skin. Besides Harrelson, the rest of the acting (especially Wright) dazzles as well, including Ice Cube as an Internal Affairs investigator and Steve Buscemi, as a hamstrung top cop. Plot is secondary to the central experience, visually heightened by cinematographer Bobby Bonkowski, who shot in digital.
Harrelson, the openly pot-smoking, raw food eating, laid back dude who would ostensibly seem more at home in the new hippie commune comedy, Wanderlust, continues to surprise and enchant. Working totally against type for the second film running, he’s a biting actor on the rise and one of our best. In Ramparts he holds in reserve enough of himself to seem to be outside his character looking in, enjoying the view. Can’t blame him.
8 Pernicious, Lovable Dudes (out of 10)