The Los Angeles Police Department has never exactly been loved in it’s home city, and just after they were managing to recover from the PR nightmare that was the Rodney King incident; leading to the 1992 Los Angeles riots; another, possibly worse scandal hit; the late 90’s Rampart Scandal. The scandal involved a number of corrupt officers from the L.A.P.D.’s Rampart division (most notably Rafael Perez), who were found to be involved with unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting evidence, stealing evidence, framing suspects, dealing drugs, taking bribes, bank robbery, perjury, and covering up evidence, among other things, and ever since there has been some sort of film based on the scandal in the works.
The Rampart Division has already been seen on screen several times, although mostly just as a partial basis, or clear and obvious influence, for characters and events; such as Denzel Washington’s corrupt detective in Training Day, the pair of corrupt officers played by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Clifton Collins Jr. in Dirty, and to some extent Kurt Russel’s Sergeant Perry, in Dark Blue.
The most famous example however (and probably the most realistic, and heavily based on the scandal), is Shawn Ryan’s, multiple award winning, gritty crime drama; The Shield, which concluded after it’s seventh season back in 2008, and was actually titled Rampart originally (but the name was changed at the request of the L.A.P.D.). It followed an anti-gang unit (similar to Rampart’s CRASH unit) that was often under investigation as they were known for beating suspects, dealing drugs, taking bribes, planting evidence, etc. etc; and were led by a corrupt detective called Vic Mackey (a performance that earned Michael Chiklis an Emmy, and a Golden Globe, among other awards); a role whose essence may soon be taken of by Woody Harrelson.
The new Rampart movie wouldn’t actually have Harrelson playing Vic Mackey, as it would be much more true to life and focus on the real scandal, but he would still be playing an extremely corrupt officer, and is extremely interested in taking on the part in the new, and first proper, telling of the story.
The new film has been written by James Ellroy (who actually wrote the story for 2002’s Dark Blue) and has Oren Moverman (The Messenger) currently circling the director’s role; another thing that has Woody interested, as the last time that the Zombieland star teamed up with Moverman (for The Messenger) he scooped up an Oscar nomination.
Another star from The Messenger is also rumoured to have been cast in a key role; Ben Foster; however the future of the picture is still fairly uncertain, and there’s no official word as to whether or not Oren will actually get the picture on film (he’s also supposedly attached to a Kurt Cobain biopic that’s been in development just as long), but one thing is for certain; that with James Ellroy’s talent for writing corrupt police officers, Oren Moverman (who received a number of screenplay nominations for The Messenger) attached to directed, and an Oscar nominated cast that includes 2012’s Woody Harrelson, who could soon be locked in; this film has huge potential to be a massive hit both critically, and with the general public.
