Rampart
Millennium Entertainment | Release Date: February 10, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
70
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
24
Mixed:
11
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertFeb 15, 2012
Harrelson is an ideal actor for the role. Especially in tensely wound-up movies like this, he implies that he's looking at everything and then watching himself looking. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanNov 23, 2011
Oren Moverman's Rampart is a terrific film: tense, shocking, complex, mesmerizing. Read full review
91
IndieWireEric KohnNov 22, 2011
Rampart is co-written by crime writer James Ellroy as a messy, disorienting noir, and shot by cinematographer Bobby Bukowski with an unsettling degree of realism. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 16, 2012
In relation to the well-made and sensitive confines of "The Messenger," Rampart required a more unruly visual approach. Beginning and ending with Harrelson, this sophomore effort is full of malignant life. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 10, 2012
Yup, it could have been a bucket of bleak. But the electric talent of Harrelson and Moverman is too exciting to be anything but exhilarating. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen ColeFeb 9, 2012
Noir connoisseurs, however, will receive Moverman's latest like a double-bourbon from heaven. Rampart is the best crime-movie fix from Hollywood since "Gone Baby Gone." Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 1, 2012
Brown is a sick man, but Harrelson makes him so interesting, so charismatic, so ... watchable, that you can't look away, even if his actions make you want to (and they will). Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonFeb 9, 2012
With Mr. Harrelson, Mr. Moverman has created an antihero of epic proportions and indiscretions. Read full review
80
SalonAndrew O'HehirFeb 9, 2012
This movie's too small and too dark to have gotten Harrelson into the overcrowded best-actor race, but it's without question one of the year's great performances. Read full review
80
Time OutDavid FearNov 22, 2011
The film has its narrative flaws and, occasionally, distracting stylistic flourishes. Harrelson's portrayal of a swinging dick staring down the abyss, however, is perilously close to perfect; it's the finest, most harrowing thing he's ever done. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 16, 2012
The best thing Harrelson brings is his own sweetness of disposition, which somehow never goes completely into hiding. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia PuigFeb 10, 2012
Though the plot can be vague and occasionally convoluted, Harrelson is mesmerizing. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayFeb 8, 2012
Harrelson thrives amid the restlessness, and gives perhaps the peak performance of his increasingly distinguished career. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineGlenn Heath Jr.Nov 19, 2011
Not only does its incredibly loose aesthetic challenge the traditionally controlled and slick conventions of the cop genre, it adds a certain visceral haziness that compliments Brown's own professional and personal immorality. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesFeb 16, 2012
Harrelson returns in Moverman's second feature playing a similar character, a bullheaded LAPD officer whose long career with the force is unraveling amid a succession of brutality complaints, and although the role offers the same macho quotient as the earlier one, it's counterbalanced in this case by funny, observant scenes of his gyno-centric home life. Read full review
70
SlateDana StevensFeb 9, 2012
At times this gritty, intermittently gripping police drama feels like a follow-up to "The Messenger" - not just because of the thematic overlap (both films deal with grief, substance abuse, and self-destructive masculinity), but because Rampart's main character, the cynical, drug-abusing cop played by Woody Harrelson, might be the long-lost twin of the alcoholic Army captain Harrelson played in the earlier Moverman film. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla DargisNov 23, 2011
A sun-scorched noir, Rampart tells a familiar story with such visual punch and hustling energy that it comes close to feeling like a new kind of movie, though it's more just a tough gloss on American crime stories past. Read full review
70
Village VoiceKarina LongworthNov 22, 2011
Here the director pulls off the formidable task of marrying two unwieldy performances: Harrelson's, a volatile and vulnerable feat of showboating, and Ellroy's, whose writing voice is unmistakably the voice of the movie. Read full review
70
TimeRichard CorlissNov 13, 2011
Harrelson rewards watching; he's no less potent at rest than when he explodes in calculated rage. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn LevyMar 1, 2012
Ellroy's bully-boy schtick is getting stale, and Moverman is overly beholden to it. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenFeb 23, 2012
It should come as little surprise that James Ellroy, the master of corrupt L.A. cop stories (L.A. Confidential), authored the Rampart screenplay along with director Moverman. Read full review
65
MovielineAlison WillmoreNov 22, 2011
While it provides a watchable, nuanced portrait of man in crisis, it's an insistently one-note affair, repeated until it induces a splitting headache. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 3, 2011
It is fair to argue that, at least in the case of Rampart, Woody Harrelson is better than the material in which he appears. Read full review
63
ObserverRex ReedNov 30, 2011
The film works because of Mr. Harrelson's magnetism. Read full review
60
EmpireDan JolinFeb 20, 2012
A familiar story oddly presented, but with a powerful central performance from Woody Harrelson. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyNov 22, 2011
For all of its punishing pathos, the movie does not have the clean lines and elegance of another cut at crime in this city, "L.A. Confidential" (based on an Ellroy novel). As the day of reckoning approaches, the film spins out of control, careening between convoluted subplots, with the emotional pitch of the piece swinging too wildly. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNov 22, 2011
Harrelson though, is in every scene, and seeing him burn up Rampart is positively arresting. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangNov 13, 2011
While the film is drenched in atmosphere and packs a verbal and visceral punch, its relentless downward spiral makes for an overdetermined, not entirely satisfying character study. Read full review
60
Boxoffice MagazineSara Maria VizcarrondoNov 13, 2011
With a powerhouse cast that also includes Steve Buscemi, Sigourney Weaver, Robin Wright, Ben Foster, Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon and Ice Cube, the carefully crafted and trenchant drama will appeal to more audience members than it will to critics. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldConnie OgleMar 1, 2012
One of the problems with Rampart is that we've seen guys like Dave in movies and on TV for years now. The bad cop psyche has been delved into pretty deeply on all fronts, most notably in FX's brilliant series "The Shield." Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 16, 2012
Something to see and little to remember, an acrid character study undone by narrative implausibilities and its own lack of purpose. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinDec 27, 2011
As Brown becomes more flagrantly self-destructive and at the same time more deluded, you realize you're watching "Bad Lieutenant" made by a tediously finger-wagging Jew instead of a tediously desecrating Catholic. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle SmithNov 23, 2011
As the movie drags on, though, it takes on a throbbing, sick monotone. This isn't a concert, it's a bass guitar solo, all thumping blackness. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk HoneycuttNov 13, 2011
Harrelson goes full bore from the opening scene and there are no scenes he is not in. But the effect is wearying rather than exhilarating. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorAndy KleinFeb 10, 2012
Harrelson is effective, but the film isn't helped by the inevitable comparisons to the far superior "L.A. Confidential" and "Bad Lieutenant" movies. Read full review
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