PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Steineded How sad is this?

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

halsall1968 You have to be kidding me this movie was poorly executed, direction-less and at best confusing. The plot wandered aimlessly with pointless character development and constant disappointment where the viewer is led down one path then left without resolution. I felt cheated by this movie at every turn especially the conclusion where Brown just drives off, no court case no explanation just blah. Save yourself 108 Min's of your life and do something else like your taxes or poke yourself in the eye, it will be more satisfying than this garbage.

elgabote This movie is one of those for when you're in the mood to spend some time to understand what the director wanted to show and give it an after thought. It's slow paced, with a lot of creative photography content. It gets the spectator into the everyday of the character (that by the way, it's really good portrayed by Harrelson) and his twisted life. Is not an action or straight forward movie, is more a character development movie, and doesn't explain or show explicitly everything that is or will happen, just gives you the clues (that are many) to figure it out. Regarding of the open ending (I have read that many didn't like), if you think about what happened along the movie, you know what happens with the characters in the end, it's just adding up everything is been coming.Good photography, average story, good writing, very good acting. Worths the watch, again, if you're in the mood.

jackasstrange Rampart may have good intentions, but fails at executing it.In the start, as we can see, it tries to show us the life of a corrupt cop and also tries to somehow makes the viewer to sympathize with the dirty man. Well, it don't works. It's impossible to care about the protagonist. He is just a creepy, despicable nobody manipulated by the system, a loser which later shows in the film that also has a very generic personality, despite being a hot-head kind of guy. Impossible to care about a character like that. But fine. The film develops a overused and mildly interesting premise in the start. But then, in the middle of it's running time, the film totally loses it's focus creating yet another conflict, a situation apparently worse(by worse i mean uninteresting) than the first presented in the beginning. And the film keeps creating these 'sub-plots' until it suddenly ends. Yes. The film ends without any explanation of anything. Horrible.But yeah, the performances were quite good, Harrelson did a good job as the protagonist, but his character just didn't affected me at all. I didn't felt involved with him at all, and 80% of the things he did in the film were totally uninteresting and almost without any connection with the 'main premise'.And the stylized editing looked like a fail attempt to mask the uninteresting events in the film. It was meaningless. Remove the edition and you can barely stand this film.Anyways, it may be watchable, if you are really interested in losing 100 minutes of your day. 5.0/10

salmon62 If you are going to produce a film about the Rampart scandal (and dedicate the film to the "victims of Rampart") then you better make a film that accurately reflects the day to day existence of the cops you are targeting.Rampart's main character, Woody Harrelson, is a mess, like this movie. The standard-bearer for unrealistic LAPD movies is clearly "Training Day", but Rampart is not far behind. I'd even take the movie "SWAT" over those two, as it doesn't pretend to be that realistic.The problems are immediate: "Date rape" is a completely impractical movie nickname for a cop in LAPD, especially if it's because Harrelson allegedly killed such a suspect. Wouldn't the suspect get that nickname???? C'mon! The whole "date rape murder" back story is weak.Then there's the Ned Beatty back story of a retired cop advising "Date Rape" on his situation and providing a tip for an off-duty gambling take down scheme where "Date Rape" kills a man while in uniform. This case is so poorly investigated it is unbelievable. "Date Rape" then feels the retired cop and friend of his father set him up which results in a weird gun confrontation in broad daylight, apparently unwitnessed by anyone at the beach near LAX.Harrelson is a 24-year patrol cop with LAPD, with FTO (Field Training Officer) status who appears to work by himself some days, then afternoons with a female trainee, and other times late-nights, again by himself. At one point he shows up in uniform on his day off to participate in a gambling hall take-down, by himself.Even after a "big-time use of force" which is captured on video, he is allowed to continue driving around in uniform on patrol! Folks, things like this did not happen in the LAPD, as bad as things may have been in the 90's at Rampart. Nor do officers meet with the DA alone to discuss their pending investigations, nor meet with DA investigators off-duty, nor meet with command staff/City Legal team without representation. Harrelson carries on like a like a teenager, popping off in clichés and exaggerated legalese in several instances with prosecutors and investigators,which is ridiculous for the public to see. It's waay over the top. The script is full of LA Police clichés: "I told you never go east of La Brea", "I'm not a racist, I hate everyone", Harrelson bringing a box of donuts to his captains office, Harrelson drinking a pint of booze repeatedly in uniform in his police car during a time when he knows he is under observation by Internal Affairs for use of force violations . . . The bottom line? Cops like "Date Rape", behaving recklessly as he does in this movie, do not last 24 years in LAPD patrol! There were other more serious problems with Rampart in the 90's that this movie could have addressed and the producers missed the chance.Vietnam comes up again and again . . . Harrelson's character supposedly served a good period in this war, yet he has 24 years on the department in 1999 meaning he served in Vietnam in 1975? How much of an influence could that have had? He's only in his late 40's in the film!Then there is the bizarre personal story of Harrelson marrying sisters and fathering a daughter by each of them, getting divorced by one, yet continuing to live in the same house and move back and forth between the two sisters who have homes adjacent to one another!!!This movie could have been written much better with some sort of department advisers------- like real cops from that era. Like "Training Day", the writers chose to present an image that they thought the public would enjoy, rather than an accurate portrayal of a bad cop.If you want to see a bad cop, then the "Bad Lieutenant" is the movie, not "Rampart" which can't decide what it wants to portray----- a bad cliché of a burnout cop, or the policies and procedures of an entire department which led to wholesale criminal justice corruption.