A magnificent depiction of a shady world

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2005)

The magic of the movies is that they allow us to see worlds and experience emotions that are sometimes distant from our own and our immediate environment. Antoine Fuqua in Training day brings to us a world of gangs, drugs and corruption that is alien to must of us, but which nevertheless exists, sometimes transcending its own borders and coming to us in the form of news (The rampart scandal) and no matter if we close our eyes and ignore it, it will not go away. In that world we have two police officers, officer Hoyt, a rookie just assigned to an elite anti narcotics unit, and officer Alonzo, a veteran of the force, commanding the unit. Each one of those officers has his own set of values and morality, but no one is completely good or completely evil as absolute evil or absolute good are inexistent (in humans at least), ultimately they just want to take care of their own problems. Hoyt wants to take care of his family, his young wife, his new born child, he wants to escalate positions (don't we all) in the force and this new assignment may be the perfect place to start and he will do anything to nail it. Officer Alonzo has a more complicated set of problems, he has to get a million dollars and he has to do it today; otherwise he will be killed by the Russian mafia, but he has a plan and the plan involves Hoyt (a virgin shooter above suspicion) and Roger (a drug dealer with a lot of money in his kitchen floor). Basically the movie unfolds as Alonzo's plan goes into motion showing us glimpses of a corrupt and disturbing world, a world with its own rules and twisted morality, Smiley forgiving Hoyt's life as a return for having protected his cousin's honor, gang members shooting indiscriminately to protect the sandman's property, Stan and his friends giving Alonzo carte blanch to basically kill Roger and steal his money so he can save himself, etc. Denzel Washington work was impeccable; a well deserved Oscar, showing us a man who has moved the line a little bit each time to the point that he doesn't know where he is now, a man who has moved to the edge in a desperate attempt to save his life. Is he really that bad? After all he is a father, a husband, a friend appreciated by his team (if you think you can get away with it, we are with you) and colleagues. Maybe we just caught him in a bad day...a training day. If we want to make a better society for every one, we have to know what are the obstacles we have to overcome, training day show us some of those obstacles and then some.