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!"

(18%) One of those rare movies that has some really good aspects, the main one being Woody Harrelson's very strong central performance, but overall this is frustrating misfire. By the 30th or so minutes in this feels like it's padding itself out without giving anything in return in terms of real substance, it's all just bits and pieces spoon fed every so often. This does eventually get itself going, but again it's very much one step forward one step back as it just doesn't go that one step further needed to make this a worthy film. It is almost as if Harrelson and the director are both trying to whip up some much needed energy, but they can only go so far with it before hitting a brick wall. The supporting cast is more distracting than impressive with famous faces popping up and quickly going away again, almost as if they all had a gap between projects so agreed to appear in this for a few days pay because there's no real reason why such big name stars would play such minor roles in a police drama. This, like the similar "End of watch" is a well acted, but pitifully low content failure of a movie that proves a good central performance isn't enough to make a good movie.

The recent run of Hollywood's "corrupt cop" movies seem to fall into two categories. There are those with great story lines which really draw the viewer into their world (like the surprisingly decent STREET KINGS) and those which show promise but move along aimlessly without a decent story (such as END OF WATCH). Unfortunately, RAMPART falls into the latter category.The film features a gaunt Woody Harrelson as your garden-variety corrupt cop, given over to adultery, racism, misogyny and about another dozen 'isms' and 'ogynies' while you're at it. He's an intriguing character, but unfortunately he's mired in an all-too-familiar world in a storyline which never really goes anywhere, instead just plodding along until it finally finishes. It's all rather disappointing, leaving me thinking "well, was that it?" come the end. After all, it's not like it brings anything original or thought-provoking to the genre.In addition, RAMPART also manages to waste a number of decent supporting actors who usually appear in just a scene or two. Sigourney Weaver, Ben Foster, and Steve Buscemi are three of the obvious ones who are underutilised, but Ned Beatty and THE WALKING DEAD's Jon Bernthal also deserve better than this. In the end, RAMPART becomes a depressingly humdrum cop movie, too obsessed with realism to be an entertaining movie in itself.

Well-acted and well-filmed, "Rampart" is an interesting character study of a corrupt scumbag cop. Its strongest point is that Brown (Harrelson)is far from being a totally stereotypical scumbag cop. I really enjoyed hating him at the beginning, and never exactly came to like him, but this film truly shows how Brown means well, or at least thinks he does, and allows the audience to empathize and maybe even sympathize with him enough to keep "Rampart" from being totally forgettable.Otherwise, I concur with many of the other reviews here. Despite a compelling opening scene, the so-called plot of this film meanders and is very unfulfilling. It might have worked better if Brown had not been placed in semi-suspension from the police force so early in the film and we could see him in action a little more before all the politics and soap operas begin.