Training Day Review
by Eugene Novikov (lordeugene_98 AT yahoo DOT com)November 5th, 2001
Training Day (2001)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
"I am the police!"
Starring Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke. Directed by Antoine Fuqua. Rated R.
Training Day, which might have been titled "When Good Cops Go Bad," begins as a surprisingly interesting exploration of corruption at the highest levels of law enforcement, and then it just gives up. It takes an issue with many shades and suddenly turns it black and white; it's as if the third act was cut from a different movie. The fact that everything that comes before it is so riveting makes this a difficult review to write.
The set-up is concise and efficient, and the movie jumps right into its plot. Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), is a newbie cop who, in the film's first scene, wakes up on his first day in the LAPD Narcotics Department. His mentor is Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washinton), a jaded veteran who roams the streets in an unmarked vehicle using various Machiavellian methods to dispense what he calls "street justice:" letting the hoodlums and dealers wipe themselves out.
This is a little more than Jake bargained for. He's used to what they teach at the Academy: put guys in handcuffs, bring them in, throw them in jail. Not pragmatic, according to Harris: why fry the small fish when you can set up the big sting operations, get the bad guys and make a little money on the side? We're drawn in by this argument - there was a point about halfway through the film when I was in agreement with our street-smart policeman - until Training Day slowly, subtly, begins to reveal the underside of what Detective Harris is doing here. A dealer is murdered, and the crime is set up to look like police self-defense; the cash he was hiding is promptly distributed among the conspirators. Harris hangs out in shady places, has connections he shouldn't have, makes deals he shouldn't make. And yet he's effective. He is good at what he does.
Last week, I whined that the Michael Douglas thriller Don't Say a Word turned its protagonist into a vigilante in the third act. Training Day not only turns Jake Hoyt into a vigilante, it makes Harris, an ambiguous and provocative character, a villain out of the next slasher movie. Director Antoine Fuqua and writer David Ayer - this is the first "serious" movie for both of them - viciously cut off their own legs with one of the worst finales of the year.
Indeed, the ending made me so angry that I have to actively fight the temptation to bash the entire movie. But everything that comes before it is impressively challenging, asking provocative answers and, for the time being, providing no easy answers. Washington, abandoning the self-righteous pomposity of The Hurricane and Remember the Titans, lets loose with a performance and lets loose with an Oscar-bait performance that would have been polarizing if the film's last twenty minutes didn't so blatantly shift the momentum. Hawke, in his first mainstream role since 1998, makes his character more interesting than he would have been had he been played simply as a shallowly idealistic young preppie. The performance is unironic, but there is always a hint of a dark side.
Until the film pushes him over the edge, Alonzo Harris seems to have a point: in places where the law is simply ignored, the police have to go above the law. It's a controversial argument, one that would have generated conversation and debate. But Training Day goes and makes everything black and white. Why?
Grade: B
Up Next: Joy Ride
©2001 Eugene Novikov
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
