Rampart

RAMPART (Oren Moverman, 2011)

With the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division already mired in scandal, the actions of 24-year veteran officer Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) add more black marks on a station noted for its corruption.  Set in 1999, approximately a year after a real-life investigative task force was formed to scrutinize the division, RAMPART follows Dave as he abuses his power and refuses to adapt to changing times.

Twelve years earlier he was suspected of killing an alleged serial date rapist.  While no charges against him stuck, the nickname Date Rape Dave did.  He employs highly questionable but effective methods to fight crime and doesn’t believe his behavior leaves anything to apologize for.  

One day while on patrol a civilian driver plows into Dave’s car.  The offender flees when Dave confronts him.  Dave chases him down and delivers an excessive beating that a bystander catches on tape.  Ever so quick to mount a defense, Dave claims he was responding to being assaulted with a deadly weapon.  Whether he or anyone of his superiors really believes this justification is likely irrelevant.  Dave will continue to operate as usual until he no longer carries a badge.  With pressure increasing on the LAPD to get rogue cops under control, that time may arrive sooner than he thinks.

Director/co-writer Oren Moverman and co-writer James Ellroy examine the corrupt law enforcement culture by occupying the headspace of a damaged officer on a downward spiral.  Although the character study doesn’t leave Dave’s side, the narrative style is rarely direct.  Instead, like police work, RAMPART requires paying attention to details and inferring the scale of the division’s scandal and Dave’s rocky personal life from careful viewing and honing in on stray dialogue tidbits.  The oblique storytelling technique rewards with the economical way it fills in the background without piling on excessive backstory or psychological portraiture, but it can confuse by needlessly obscuring relevant information.

While Moverman wishes to keep character and plot specifics inconspicuous, he tends to use the camera in a distracting manner.  Showy motion, like a 360-degree revolving camera during a meeting with district attorney Bill Blago (Steve Buscemi), and unconventional angles reveal a director trying too hard.  Since Dave believes the department has set up and targeted him to remove focus from their problems, Moverman wants to convey paranoia and uncertainty through his framings and movements.  More often than not he attracts undue awareness of what the camera is doing.

Ultimately RAMPART is Harrelson’s showcase, and he takes full advantage of fleshing out a complex role.  Harrelson shows Dave as being good at his job, in large part because of his misanthropy and cleverness.  He wears disdain and smarts like other weapons on his belt, which gives him an unpredictable nature that intimidates colleagues and criminals alike. Those qualities are just as likely to get him in trouble, especially when he’s off duty.  He interrogates eldest daughter Helen (Brie Larson) about a confrontational art project and thus puts more of a chill in an already cool relationship.  In good cop mode he propositions his ex-wives, sisters Barbara (Cynthia Nixon) and Catherine (Anne Heche), but lacks sincerity.  Fueled by cigarettes, pills, and booze--others regularly remark about how he never eats--Dave is an instant gratification machine unaware of increasing malfunctions.  Harrelson plays him not as a monster but a self-destructive relic.  Either way, the damage is done.

Grade: B-

The Messenger

THE MESSENGER (Oren Moverman, 2009)

In THE MESSENGER Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) returns home from Iraq as a wounded but recovering war hero. To complete his remaining service time Will is assigned to the casualty notification team and placed under the command of Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson). Together they are the bearers of bad news that must be delivered in a timely manner to killed soldiers' next of kin.

Tony approaches the work as a high risk military mission. Park up the street so as not to tip off those they're visiting. Do not go off script. Do not touch or console the next of kin. Get in, deliver the message, get out. The casualty assistance team is for dealing with the family members in a personal manner, not them.

Three years sober and thrice divorced, Tony is a hardened man performing a hard job. Will also has his share of emotional injuries that keep him up at night, most notably his frustration with former girlfriend Kelly (Jena Malone). Although she may travel to welcome him home with a conjugal visit, she mostly seems to be moving on with someone else.

Will shows he may be willing to get on with his life when he takes an interest in Olivia (Samantha Morton), a mother who has an unusual reaction to being told her husband is dead, but such a relationship is fraught with complications, not the least of which comes from Tony's sharp disapproval.

THE MESSENGER opens promisingly as we observe two emotionally damaged men do the delicate work that no one wants to do, least of all those soldiers who have served in combat and survived. Their mere presence reminds the next of kin that their loved ones were not as fortunate. Family members try to keep Will and Tony from even saying the words, as though what happened isn't real or true unless verbalized. These painful scenes are not new to war movies, but THE MESSENGER sees them from the unconsidered perspective of those giving, rather than receiving, the news.

Foster and Harrelson are uniformly good at conveying the torment these Army men have internalized and accept as their crosses to bear. Harrelson virtually manages to clench his entire body, even when he's supposedly letting down his guard. Foster burns with a quiet intensity that makes the intention of his actions all the more inscrutable.

THE MESSENGER examines the challenges of being on the casualty notification team, especially now as they must race against the instant spread of information, but eventually it stops seeing the men and just the job. THE MESSENGER grinds to a stop when it becomes clear that Oren Moverman, who directed and co-wrote the screenplay, isn't leading the plot anywhere but toward a pat message about the price of war on the military and unenlisted.

Instead of telling one or both of these characters' stories or illuminating their crises, THE MESSENGER falls into a repetitive pattern of witnessing aggrieved reactions to the awful news and the messengers' struggles to cope. Casualty statistics don't account for the scars war leaves on everyone touched by it, yet THE MESSENGER'S clipped insight that war is hell is just the sort of line straight from the manual that the film strenuously cautions against.

Grade: C+