Rampart

Oren Moverman’s follow-up to 2009’s The Messenger, Rampart details a few weeks in the life of an increasingly beleaguered Los Angeles police officer (Woody Harrelson’s Dave Brown) – with Brown’s past indiscretions catching up with him after he beats an unarmed suspect. Moverman has infused Rampart with a jittery, documentary-like sensibility that initially proves rather off-putting, with the lack of an entry point for the viewer ensuring that Harrelson is simply unable to transform his inherently unlikable character into a wholeheartedly compelling figure. (This is despite the fact that the actor offers up an eye-opening, consistently riveting performance.) Just as the meandering atmosphere threatens to turn oppressive, Moverman injects the proceedings with some much-needed substance as Brown increasingly finds himself drawn into a high-profile scandal – with the passable atmosphere heightened by the impressive cavalcade of familiar faces (including Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi, and, most entertainingly, Ben Foster as an off-kilter, bearded, homeless war veteran). It’s worth noting, though, that even during this stretch Moverman is unable to wholeheartedly grab the viewer, as the filmmaker’s reliance on less-than-engrossing subplots (eg Brown’s relationships with the mothers of his children) ensures that the movie slowly-but-surely fizzles out to a demonstrable degree. By the time Brown winds up at an unreasonably sleazy sex club, Rampart has clearly taken a wrong turn somewhere and established itself as a progressively unpleasant piece of work – although the film admittedly does succeed as a low-key portrait of one man’s downward spiral.

** out of ****