How do you get your movie about a cop some buzz? You post viral posters in major cities with Woody Harrelson’s character beating a man.

The poster is tainted red and shows Harrelson’s cop character, baton in hand, with the words I WORK FOR YOU printed at the bottom.

At first glance the posters look like regular street art or someone exposing or mocking a corrupt cop. Until you realize “Hey, is that Woody Harrelson?”

/Film quotes the director of Rampart about the poster.

The poster was Lawrence Inglee’s idea. He’s one of the producers of Rampart and he was searching for an image that would be thought-provoking and challenging, not an indictment of a cop but rather a communal approach to the idea of policing, the idea that maybe when cops do bad things it’s more of a reflection of society and what it is willing to tolerate rather than the fault of one bad apple or an institutional problem. If they work for us, could it be they ARE us?

Rampart has been getting awesome reviews and apparently Woody Harrelson is at his best here. Rampart release Feb. 10. You can check out the synopsis below.

Officer Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson) is a Vietnam vet and a Rampart Precinct cop, dedicated to doing “the people’s dirty work” and asserting his own code of justice, often blurring the lines between right and wrong to maintain his action-hero state of mind. When he gets caught on tape beating a suspect, he finds himself in a downward spiral as the consequences of his past sins and his refusal to change his ways. Brown internalizes his anguish as his world, complete with two ex-wives who are sisters, two daughters, an aging mentor, investigators, and a series of seemingly random women, starts making less and less sense.

[Slashfilm via LaughingSquid] [Photo via Scott Lynch]

rampart, viral advertising, woody harrelson