|
Hot Picks
| |
|
Rampart
USA 2011
produced by
Ben Foster, Lawrence Inglee, Ken Kao, Clark Peterson, Paul Currie (executive), Michael DeFranco (executive), Mark Gordon (executive), Garrett Kelleher (executive), Lila Yacoub (executive) for Lightstream Pictures, Waypoint Entertainment, Third Mind Pictures, Amalgam Features
directed by Oren Moverman
starring Woody Harrelson, Robin Wright, Sigourney Weaver, Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Ice Cube, Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Steve Buscemi, Jon Bernthal, Stella Schnabel, Jon Foster, Brie Larson, Sammy Boyarsky, Audra McDonald, Keith Woulard, Harriet Sansom Harris, Robert Wisdon, Leonard Kelly-Young, Francis Capra, Jim O'Hagen, William Paul Clark
written by James Ellroy, Oren Moverman, music by Dickon Hinchcliffe
review by
Mike Haberfelner
|
|
|
 |
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
|
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
 |
|
David Brown (Woody Harrelson) is your typical asshole cop: He hates all
humanity but is a racist on top of that, he is known for his use of
excessive force, he is said to have shot a suspect out of vengeance, and
on top of that, he thinks the law he has sworn to uphold isn't necessarily
something that also applies to him. One day another car crashes into
his, and he beats the driver half to death. It's also a black driver, and
by chance the event is filmed (the beating, not the crash) - and suddenly
he's the racist posterboy for the city, and suddenly internal affairs got
his ass, and suddenly ... he has sex an affair with a prosecutor (Robin
Wright), who might have her hands in the affair. Still, David thinks he's
in the right, and he does everything to keep his job with the force, and
the fact that he didn't get suspended even seems to prove him right - in
his eyes. Then, too, he learns that the whole beating incident was very
probably a setup to discredit him. In the meantime though, his family
falls apart, and again he doesn't think it's his fault. David feels he
is kicked in the balls by everyone despite being innocent, but when he has
an argument with his daughter (Brie Larson) and he accuses him of having
abused her (even though he claims he only hurts bad guys), this opens his
eyes ... and ultimately, he records a confession of all his, shall we say,
indiscretions on tape. Rampart is a dirty cop movie a
bit in the tradition of Bad Lieutnant, Violent
Cop or Tour de Force
- but nowhere near as brilliant as either of these movies. Basically, the
film suffers from, let's face it, a bad script. To put it another way, the
film has very little story to tell, yet spreads it out over 105 minutes,
fills it up with unnecessary characters and pointless subplots, and seems
to travel through all of it blindly. And that James Ellroy isn't exactly a
writer known for subtlety is painfully obvious here, too, as he seems to
use nothing but broad clichées to portray his characters. At least
Woody Harrelson is rather brilliant in his role, which rather saves the
day, while other name actors are mostly wasted in supporting roles and
seem to have been hired for their marquee value rather than anything else. To
put it rather bluntly: A disappointment!
|
amazon.de
eThaiCD.com
find Rampart at adultvideouniverse.com
