Rampart

This film embodies one of the raw essences that make me love cinema - it is hard-boiled and cynical in a tradition that goes back to Chandler and beyond, and to the best films noirs of the 1940s. It has wonderful cinematography that is simultaneously noirish yet very colourful and bright, contrasty, with burnt-out whites. It has an amazing cast, including Robin Wright, whose fan club I joined straight after seeing State of Grace, Ned Beatty, Sigourney Weaver and Steve Buscemi.

Co-written by its director Oren Moverman and James Ellroy, it is the story of a tough and cynical cop, Dave Brown, played by Woody Harrelson, in possibly the best part of his career. Womanising and filled with hate, he is torn between his two ex-wives, his daughters, and a crisis in his career brought on by an excess of violence. He is improbably self-aware and articulate as he copes with his superiors, seeming more savvy than them, and expressing the existential essence of the film. We are challenged to wonder whether he is in any way sympathetic and whether he is capable of redemption; whether he is producing the culture which he inhabits, or whether he is a product of it.

Moverman and his cinematographer, Bobby Bukowski, had a great time with a very mobile camera, achieving a noir style and conjuring many abstract images. There is one scene, towards the end, where Brown descends into a 'lower depth' of drugs and depravation where the film risks parody, but otherwise this is a treat for the movie-lover.