“Funny (and a surprise to no one) how my back up plan for everything is “”watch a movie””. Today, it was for a failed bowling trip. I’d thought the long weekend and the week right after our IAP show closed would be good timing for a big Social event for my theatre friends. Turns out, every other group they’re involved in (really? they have lives outside theatre? blasphemy!) also had big events this weekend. As of yesterday I still had no RSVPs so I looked into backup plans and came up with Rampart. I actually did have one person show up today, but he opted to join me for the plan B movie. I really knew incredibly little about it. I knew it had Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster and Woody played a cop. That was about it. I IMDB-ed the trailer while waiting to see if anyone else showed up, and it was enough to solidify the decision to go watch.
Speaking of knowing little about something, how the \m/ do you pronounce Rampart anyway? I keep tripping over the stupid word, not able to figure out which syllABLE gets the emPHAsis. The box office guy looked at me funny.
It started off promising. Harrelson is this tough yet tortured cop with a bit of an anger management problem, and he is truly fantastic. The trailer said this was the finest performance of his career. I’d say …Larry Flynt or The Messenger were better (or at the very least infinitely better films) but this was still up there. And the supporting cast was filled with awesome: Steve Buscemi, Ben Foster, Robin Wright, Cynthia Nixon, Sigourney Weaver, Brie Larson. But then somewhere along the line, my interest in the movie just dropped off.
I was with it for the first hour or so and then it just started heading nowhere. Okay, we get it. This guy’s life sucks. He has agression issues that have him in trouble at work. His family hates him. Blah blah blah. Things just stopped progressing and I stopped caring. Really, I dont know what was going on in the second half of the movie because it just lost me. Shame too cause it had such potential.
Rampart – \m/ \m/