In 2002 a particularly compelling American police movie was released. Called Dark Blue, Ron Shelton's film chartered the build up to and the beginning of the LA Riots from the perspective of a flawed-albeit-honest officer (Ving Rhames) and a corrupt though effective cop (Kurt Russell).
Dark Blue's script was based on a screenplay entitled Plague Season, the author of which was eminent US crime novelist James Ellroy (LA Confidential, etc.). Asked to promote Dark Blue on the talk show circuit. Ellroy - an unpredictable man at the best of times - made the producers well aware that he thought that the film, which had been pretty well received by critics, was a pale imitation of the script he'd written and as such he had no desire to support the picture publicly.
A decade later, another American cop movie emerged, again written by the mighty Mr Ellroy. Rampart stars Woody Harrelson as Dave Brown, a 'Nam vet who now makes a living policing the mean streets of Los Angeles. The year is 1999, and what will become known as the Rampart scandal is in full swing. So with Brown and his LAPD compadres carrying on like the Bloods and the Crips, one can but wonder who the real criminals are.
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