Overlong and uneven, but very well-acted and often engaging

Rating: 7/10 (8 October 2001)

At times, "Training Day" seems like a photographed play. Most of the scenes during the first and second acts take place within the confines of a patrol car, with Denzel and Hawke having their foul-mouthed interactions. To be honest, I felt some of those scenes could've been trimmed or cut and didn't seem necessary. The overuse of dialogue scenes dragged down the pace a little. So you can say, the film could've used more time in the editing room.
The performances are stellar. Denzel is one of my favorite actors, and it was nice to watch him play a character much different from the upperclassmen he usually plays. This time around, he's an uninhibited, foul-mouthed, sadistic, no-nonsense narcotics cop. Like always, I was impressed by Denzel, but I was even more impressed by his co-star Ethan Hawke. Technically, the film focuses on him, but since Denzel is a much bigger star--he has to get first billing. Sorry, Ethan. Hawke, though a fine actor, usually gets the role of the pretty-boy love interest. This is a much, much different role for him. He plays a quiet, well-intentioned married man who gets called in for training (as a narc) by Denzel. The two guys couldn't be any more different, like all buddy cop movies. But unlike most buddy cop movies, this is much darker. There's humor here and there, but dark humor. None of that Riggs-Murtaugh chemistry we got used to in the "Lethal Weapon" movies. I have to admire Antoine Fuqua for not making the usual casting choices. Another example of his original casting is Scott Glenn's role as a burned-out dealer, who Denzel befriends. Of course, since Fuqua has a history directing music videos, we have supporting roles with such artists as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Macy Gray. Not the greatest actors, but they didn't have enough screen time to ruin the film.

The climax is adverse to the film's harsh, realistic tone. We're basically given the Hollywood treatment. We have the usual dueling between the antagonist and protagonist, in which they beat each other to a bloody pulp. One of them gets away, the other returns--as a bloody mess--and they fight again. I don't want to give away the ending, though there's no big surprises, but if an alleged tough guy is in the middle of a ghetto, gangbangers and dealers surrounding and outnumbering him, and starts telling them off--it don't matter if you're a policeman or not; those guys would blow you away in the drop of a hat. That's when Denzel makes his "King Kong ain't got s**t on me!" speech, in which you're sitting in the theater trying to stop yourself from laughing. And you know damn well those gangbangers and dealers would've laughed at him too--before he's brutally killed. It's noticeable that the writer of this film tried to be realistic by injecting tons of street slang into the script, but some of the slang sounded more laughable (unintentionally) and preposterous than realistic. Believe me, I live in an environment where I hear more street slang than I need to hear. I know the difference between real and fake slang.
"Training Day" is an overlong film that gets boring at times, but I found it mostly engaging. The performances alone are worth watching. By the way, that hot mamacita Eva Mendes plays Denzel's wife in the film. And she has a brief nude scene. Oh, man! Is she hottt!
My score: 7 (out of 10)