I?ve never given much thought to the domestic life of a corrupt cop before. He spends his days unnecessarily roughing up punks or shaking down local business owners, but at night he might return to a warm, beautiful home and be most concerned that he?s losing his connection to his young daughters. Can a person be a nasty human being and a good father?
Los Angeles Police Officer Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) likes to think so. Actually, strike that: the question has never occurred to him. And it?s not because he isn?t aware of what an awful person he is. (?I?m not a racist,? he says when he?s investigated for the brutal beating of a black man. ?Fact is I hate all people equally.?) In his mind, he?s a soldier and the actions he takes ? however deplorable to others ? are his means of doing his duty as a police officer and a parent.
He will go to extremes to get what he wants, which includes his unique living arrangements.? He lives in the pool house of the home of his ex-wife and their daughter. Next door lives his other ex-wife (the sister of his first ex-wife) and their daughter. The group functions as a collective family unit. He occasionally sleeps with one of his exes, but generally maintains the sexual habits of a single man.
Women dominate his life. He cares deeply for his daughters, yet he has no problem treating a woman he picked up in a bar as trash immediately after the transactional business of their one-night-stand is completed. He always seems to consider himself the cleverest guy in the room, often using $10 words when he?s holding court?though he doesn?t quite get the meaning of some of them right. The guy is a mass of contradictions. He?s complicated, the movie really, really wants us to appreciate.
After Brown is placed on leave and subjected to an internal investigation following a violent outburst at a motorist, he comes to believe he?s been set up as a fall guy to take the heat off police department leadership, which is weathering its own major scandal (a scandal that goes mostly unexplained in Rampart). Maybe he has been set up, or maybe he?s just paranoid. Regardless, he makes a decision that digs him deeper into a hole, while refusing to simply resign as his superiors want.
Director Oren Moverman, who co-wrote the screenplay with crime novelist James Ellroy (LA Confidential), centers his film on a suitably fascinating character ? and Harrelson is perfect in the role ? but doesn?t give that character much to play against. Brown runs roughshod over everyone in his life and only his defiant teenage daughter Helen (Brie Larson) seems capable of giving him pause. He hooks up with a lawyer (Robin Wright) who is as screwed up in the head as he is, but the relationship goes nowhere and in their scenes together the movie feels as though it?s merely treading water.
When Brown learns of the unintended consequences of an action he?d taken years before, and of which he?d been proud, he drowns his feelings in drugs and sex. By that point I had tired of hanging around the guy, whose story wasn?t going much of anywhere.
Yet the film finds its footing in its final act, with Brown?s realization of how the life he?s chosen for himself has affected his daughters.
?I want you to know I never hurt any good people,? he tells them.
?What about us?? Helen asks the seemingly obvious question.
It turns out that question wasn?t quite so obvious to him.
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