In 1999, in Los Angeles, the brutal, racist and womanizer Police Officer David "Dave" Douglas Brown (Woody Harrelson) works at the Rampart Division. He lives with his dysfunctional family composed by the ex- wives Catherine (Anne Heche) and Barbara (Cynthia Nixon) and his two daughters Margaret (Sammy Boyarsky) and Helen (Brie Larson) in the same house. Dave frequently goes to single bars to have one night stand with lonely women. He was accused in the past of executing a rapist but was considered not-guilty. When his police car is crashed by a Mexican driver, the man runs and Dave brutally beats him but is filmed on video. Now the Rampart Division is being prosecuted while the Internal Affairs is investigating Dave. He spends his savings with the lawyers and needs to raise money. What will Dave do?

"Rampart" is a pointless and messy film with a senseless story that goes no where. What is the intention of the director and writer is the great question about this terrible movie. The cynical character performed by Woody Harrelsonoes not seem to feel bad with his behavior; but when her confesses his misconduct in a tape to the Internal Affairs agent the viewer realizes that he is aware of everything he did wrong. There are several inconclusive subplots along the story and the viewer gets lost about where the story goes. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Um Tira Acima da Lei" ("A Cop above the Law")

In plain words, Rampart is quite fantastic. Like the original bad lieutenant it focuses on a main character who the audience may have sympathy towards, but could never be described as a good or even sane person. The main character, "Date Rape" Dave, is, for lack of a better word, a sociopath. Besides his two daughters he shows little to no empathy towards anyone, and his actions can easily be described as disturbing, manipulative, and at times sadistic. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this character study of an unhinged, sexually addicted, and emotionally unstable man who uses his status as a police officer to take out his anger and racial prejudices onto the minorities on the street. It's a movie that makes you want to give the main character a hug at the end and then send him into a mental ward for psychological testing. Woody Harrelson plays this part to perfection by the way. I do have some issues with this movie, or rather nitpicks that by themselves are insignificant but together culminate into a problem. Fist off, the quick jump cuts that take place in many interrogation scenes of Dave are unnecessary and honestly annoying to watch. The movie literally cuts out half a second between the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next for the sake of seeming "artistic". Maybe this worked for 'breathless', but it doesn't work here for me. The exception to this is a scene towards the end where Sigourney weaver's character is seemingly telling Dave everything she cannot stand about him. He fires back repeatedly with abrasive and angry questions towards her, and the rapidness and anger of his questioning is accentuated by the quick cuts that eliminate time between questions. Btw did I mention this review is going to sound really pretentious, cause it is. A goof ( as the kids say) that I noticed was when woody is interrogated by ice cube's character outside from the police station. Off screen he begins talking to Dave, and the camera then moves in front of Dave and makes a long uncut tracking shot as he walks past cube. Unfortunately, not only could neither of the characters possibly seen each other at the start of the scene due to where Dave was sitting, but the audio level of cubes voice as Dave moves closer towards him doesn't change at all. Yeah it's a nitpick. A ducking snooty as duck one, but hey duck you this is my review. Finally, this is probably an issue with the viewer not the movie, but I didn't understand WTF the rampart situation was or why it was so significant to the plot. I wish it had been more clear or impactive. Overall I kind of love this movie. The jarring editing during the club scene mixed with the abrasive music make for an absolutely amazing scene, and as a whole this movie is a powerful and uncomfortable look into the life of a sociopath and the destruction he brings upon himself and those he cares about.

Somewhere along the way I picked up the trivia that LAPD officers refer to their cruisers as "shops." This comes from the "shop number" each vehicle carries. No big message here--just a bit of trivia.

Which is where I stand on Rampart, a dreary, artsy retread of Crash and a bunch of Wambaugh police stories, not to mention my favorite "burnt-out cop" movies, Madigan, Warning Shot, and, speaking of Joseph Wambaugh, The New Centurions. There's nothing new here, except, maybe the fact that the movies I mentioned all have protagonists who have some redeeming social value. Even Kurt Russell in that cops-are-racist-murderers screed (I can't remember the name) set in the Rodney King spring of 1992 had some shock and awe value.

Nothing here. Just Woody Harrelson looking dyspeptic and cancerous and other-worldly. Throw in Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon as sisters who have both been married to this wretched Harrelson character, and you've got the makings of a really Class-A cinematic disaster.

I saw on the IMDb page for Rampart that the thing made about 1/12 of the cost, but it's all so earnest and true-to-life and artsy- friggin'-fartsy that only a red-state Neanderthal would mention that the movie made zilch, thereby sucking investor-dollars away from projects that may have had a chance to succeed.

If you hadn't already noticed, I hate Woody Harrelson and indie- flop-piles-of-art-garbage. If Hollywood, mainstream or independent, wants to play with its collective self, then do it at home. It won't cost investors a dime, and ego-masturbation should be kept to a minimum of public viewing.

If you see Rampart on a cable channel, follow the clichéd advice from many a movie cop--"Move along; nothing to see here!"