With the summer nearly over and everything quiet surrounding Oren Moverman’s cop drama “Rampart,” which was already supposed to have started lensing, we were beginning to get a little worried that maybe the film might not be happening. Nothing to fear however, as Production Weekly have tweeted that the film is still moving forward with production now set to begin in late October in Los Angeles.
Starring Ice Cube, Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster, the fascinating project will find the rapper returning to his dramatic leading man roots as a homicide detective sent to investigate a dirty cop (Harrelson), in a story based on the real-life scandal involving crooked L.A. cops in the 1990s in which more than 70 officers were implicated and many were convicted. According to Wikipedia, “the convicted offenses include unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of evidence, framing of suspects, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury, and covering up evidence of these activities.”
The subject matter seems right in the usual wheelhouse of James Ellroy who penned the script, and is best known for the novels “L.A. Confidential” and “The Black Dahlia” each made into great and awful movies respectively. But we have high hopes for this one. Moverman is a Playlist favorite and with the the one-two punch of Harrelson and Foster from the “The Messenger” returning to work with the director, we’re greatly looking forward to what they cook up together.