“Rampart’’ is set in 1999 Los Angeles and its title refers to a notoriously scandal-plagued police division. The film, which Moverman wrote with crime novel writer James Ellroy (“L.A. Confidential’’), doesn’t try to analyze what led to a corrupt division, but rather the specific formation of a badge-wearing monster.
“How do we solve a problem like Dave Brown?’’ asks police attorney Joan Confrey (Sigourney Weaver).
By then, we’ve already seen Brown lament “Rodney King wannabes,’’ abuse a handcuffed suspect and beat to a pulp a man who had the misfortune of colliding with Brown’s cruiser. That incident is caught on camera and replayed on the evening news, sparking protests and an investigation.
“This used to be a glorious soldiers’ department,’’ sneers Brown to a mixed-race female officer. “And now it’s … you.’’
Nice guy, right? At home, we see a softer, complicated side. Brown has two ex-wives (Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche, both looking lost) who are sisters and neighbors, with whom he has a teenage daughter (Brie Larson) and a younger daughter (Sammy Boyarsky). It’s an incredulous arrangement and we can only be glad, for basic clarity, when the younger girl sweetly asks her father if she’s inbred. (He laughs and tells her she isn’t and that she’s “native.’’)
The bizarre domestic situation aside, Brown’s face genuinely glows around his daughters, surely his only possible pathway to salvation.
But Brown is in a self-destructive tailspin: acting out violently, desperate for departmental cover (Ned Beatty plays a sinister LAPD retiree) and picking up women easily. He approaches one (Robin Wright) at a bar by commenting on her “litigator eyes.’’ Their relationship forms as one based on mutual self-loathing, and Wright is captivating in every moment.
