The Moral Responsabilities Of Being A Cop

Rating: 8/10 (16 September 2002)

8/10
Alonzo Harris is an experienced LAPD narcotics cop, who's been given the task to train the almost rookie Jake Hoyt. Harris will show him the streets, and will actually make him feel part of it. Harris' performance repulses Hoyt, but there's something that at the same time makes him admire him. Probably this will happened to the spectator as well. Partly because of the script, and mostly because Mr Washington knows how to be convincing to everyone listening. Hoyt will have to make a quick decision about if being a cop is really what he was expecting, therefore what he wants to be. Harris makes it sound like the only way possible to work in the narcotics division. But it's up to Hoyt to make a decision.
The most remarkable, though there is nothing wrong with the directing, the script, etc, are the performances. Washington is really convincing and will make you doubt, you won't know when you have just crossed the thin (white) line between cop duty and illegality and corruption. And Ethan Hawk should have really won the Academy Award as Hoyt. these performances kill, in more than one way.
This kind of great police dramas make me want to know and watch more about the genre.
Btw, who the hell said it was a comedy?! it is funny watching as Hoyt smokes the dope that Alonzo gives him to 'be on the streets', but what else?