There is usually something to like with most anti-hero characters.

With Woody Harrelson’s Dave Brown, there is not much to like. The man is pretty much reprehensible.

Set in 1990s Los Angeles,  Dave is a bad cop. If they were role-playing good cop, bad cop, probably even the good cop would run for cover.

A former Vietnam veteran, Dave Brown has two wives — two sisters actually, that he at least married and divorced, one at a time. He has worn out his welcome with both of them, but usually shares a home with them (he actually lives next door), as well as his daughters, one from each wife.

His daughters are so confused by the arrangement they ask dad if they are a product of inbreeding.

Still legally married to wife No. 2 (Anne Heche), Cynthia Nixon plays wife No. 1, he frequently leaves the house to look for olives (one of many euphemisms for finding someone to bed down with for the night).

But if his domestic arrangement isn’t bad enough, he is even worse on the job.

He practically killed a guy who tried to flee, and it was all caught on tape. But Dave is never wrong. If he was caught on tape beating someone up, it must have happened because someone else had it in for him and recorded the beating.

Harrelson is very good as the cop. It is a mesmerizing role, as good as any from 2011 (this film was shown at film festivals  and in limited release last year).

He has a bit of humor about him, but he is flawed through and through.  The film’s title actually takes its name a wide-spread corruption case in Los Angeles that coincides with the time-line of Rampart.

Despite that bit of humor, I found Dave be unlikeable to the point, where I never could get into Rampart that much. After about an hour, I was losing interest in the guy because I had distanced myself from the guy, that even I was become detached.

Rampart has an excellent pedigree. Based on a novel by James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential), Dave sort of resembles Russell Crowe’s character in that film. But L.A. Confidential was a more accessible and far more likeable film.

By film’s end, the doors are literally closing on Brown and you know that his charm and personality are not going to help him in the much longer.

Rampart is playing in limited release in the Orlando area at the Cinemark Theaters at Festival Bay.

Critic's Rating: B-

Rated R