RAMPART

RAMPART is a politically correct drama about a racist, anti-homosexual white police officer in Los Angeles. The inspiration from the story comes from a real-life scandal in Los Angeles involving the Rampart Division, where an indicted Latino detective implied that 58 to 70 officers in an anti-gang unit were involved in stealing drugs, planting evidence, perjury, beating suspects, etc.

The story opens with Police Officer Harry Brown, played by Woody Harrelson, telling a female officer and her partner about the jungles of the streets where they work. It then goes on to follow Brown as he interacts with his family, which includes two ex-wives who are sisters and a lesbian daughter, street criminals, and members of his own department. Eventually, Brown is investigated for some questionable activities, including beating a witness, beating a black driver who crashed into Brown’s car and ran away, the killing of a victim from an illicit card game who was robbed, and Brown’s cover-up of that death.

RAMPART depicts the downfall of a corrupt, unethical man. Apparently, Officer Brown is supposed to represent the mentality that led to the Rampart Scandal in Los Angeles. That scandal involved allegations of police corruption against 58 to 70 officers in LAPD’s anti-gang unit, most of which couldn’t be proven. In reality, there was little, if anything, racial related to the scandal, and no anti-homosexual angle. Also, the majority of the few indictments against the police that actually went to the courts involved black and Latino police officers. In fact, one of the accusations that was proven was that some black officers were actually working with one of the black gangs being investigated by this special anti-gang division in the LAPD. Also, the incident that started the suspicions about the unit involved the shooting death of a black officer who was flashing gang signs and his gun against another off-duty cop in an example of road rage.

By making the protagonist anti-homosexual, RAMPART plays into all the liberal stereotypes about white conservative police officers. As implied above, such stereotypes had nothing whatsoever to do with the accusations in the Rampart Scandal which, if anything, was a scandal questioning the police department’s allegedly illegal, harsh treatment of known gang criminals, including the departmental actions of a few black and Latino officers in the LAPD. Homosexual issues had nothing to do with these accusations. Also, to make the problems in the LAPD a white versus black issue is equally off the mark, even if you assume that, like wherever else diverse racial groups come into contact, you’re going to have at least some racial conflicts of one kind or another. That problem, however, can work both ways. Finally, it should be noticed that most of the allegations by the Latino police officer and informant at the center of the Rampart Scandal, Rafael “Ray” Perez, were uncorroborated and, thus, didn’t go to court.

In the end, RAMPART is just a set-up to fit into a liberal, pro-homosexual agenda against crime-fighting white police officers. The evil protagonist doesn’t change throughout the movie play. Instead, more and more of his flaws are revealed and he gets into worse and worse trouble. In all probability, only hardcore liberals or leftists, uninformed and misguided fringe anarchists (as opposed to informed mainstream libertarians), and uninformed, pseudo-intellectual movie snobs will really like this false, misleading, abhorrent movie.