Good cop / Bad Cop

Rating: 8/10 (10 October 2001)

`Good cop/bad cop.'
The police interrogation technique of partners ganging up on a suspect has long been a cinematic staple, but in `Training Day,' the new film from Warner Bros., the competition between good cop/bad cop goes on inside one cop.
Narcotics detective Alonzo Harris, played by Denzel Washington in a spectacular performance, is the schizophrenic combination of a streetwise law enforcement crusader and a vicious leader of a police wolf pack that preys on bad guys and good guys alike. He is funny and likeable, ruthless and despicable, hero and outcast.
`There are some profoundly evil people walking these streets,' Alonzo says as the film begins. Will good prevail over evil? That is the simple dramatic question director Antoine Fuqua poses here, but the route to the answer weaves erratically through crime-infested neighborhoods and sizzling plot twists, jumping from one spellbinding scene to the next.
Harris spends a single `training day' working with narcotics division recruit Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke). Hoyt is a veteran ofuniformed traffic duty in the suburbs, but Harris sees enough in him to offer a chance to make detective on the mean streets of Los Angeles.
The two spend most of the day riding around in Harris' `office,' a vintage low-rider Monte Carlo, as the grizzled but suave Alonzo explains the nuances of working undercover and making the big arrest. Harris convinces his protégé to smoke PCP-laden weed, saying refusal on the streets would cost him his life -- `If I was a dealer, you'd be dead by now.' He tells Hoyt not to wear his wedding ring to work, saying suspects would seize on it as a sign of weakness, a vulnerability to exploit. They drink malt liquor like so much bottled water, and even stop off for a few belts of `the $300-a-bottle good stuff' with Harris' shadowy friend (played perfectly by Scott Glenn).
Harris boasts of the `15,000 man-hours of incarceration time' that his investigations have led to, but he allows several small-time criminals go free after Hoyt is ready to make busts. `We're not racking up arrests today,' Harris says. Hoyt asks, `Just let the animals wipe themselves out?' And Alonzo replies, `God willing.'
Fuqua, who made a mark directing music videos for Arrested Development, Henry D & The Boyz and Coolio, distinguishes himself with his third feature, after `The Replacement Killers' (1998) and `Bait' (2000). The pace of the film never slows, even when the two main characters are simply riding around in a car or sitting in a restaurant. The action sequences are interlaced with driving rap music and feverish editing, and Fuqua keeps the viewer guessing about what will become of Harris and Hoyt to very last.
Even with a scraggly mustache and goatee, Hawke still has a hard time shaking off his boyish innocence, but he comes of age as an actor in `Training Day.' With solid performances as a teen-ager in `The Dead Poets Society' (1989) and `A Midnight Clear' (1991), Hawke started landing some starring roles, including the overlooked lead in `Snow Falling on Cedars' (1999). A Best Supporting Actor nomination would not be a surprise, given his stellar work as the tormented Hoyt.
As for Washington, he has never been better on screen, and we're talking about an actor who has mustered four Academy Award nominations in his career. He earned his first nod for a supporting role as South Africa's Steve Biko in `Cry Freedom' (1987), and then won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1989's `Glory.' He followed that with Best Actor nominations for `Malcolm X' (1992) and `The Hurricane' (1999). (He should have won both statues, losing to Al Pacino in `Scent of a Woman' and Kevin Spacey in `American Beauty.')
Some wonder whether Washington took a risk by playing a rogue cop in `Training Day,' but other than the upbeat football coach in `Remember the Titans' (2000), his past characters have not exactly been choirboys. For example, Reuben `Hurricane' Carter was a ruthless boxer and enough a product of the streets to be convicted of manslaughter, and Malcolm X made enemies of both whites and blacks before being assassinated.
No, playing Alonzo Harris was not career suicide for Washington. In fact, it's very likely he'll finally win the Best Actor Oscar that his body of work so richly deserves.