A gripping yet shallow thriller

Rating: 6/10 (22 June 2007)

I enjoyed Training Day on a few levels, first off, Denzel Washington is superb as Alonzo and the tough, gritty action sequences make this a very realistic and violent thriller, however apart from Washington's change from the good guy he usually portrays to a corrupt and vicious narcotics officer, I felt the film had no real clear story.
There is a story somewhere, a rookie cop on the force to fight the bad guys only to get a wake up call that it's not like that is an interesting idea for a crime film but the movie gets lost in its constant attempts at carrying many different moral themes. In the end this is a good versus evil action movie disguised by a career best performance from Washington and being marketed as a fast paced crime thriller, and if it had presented itself as what it really was I would have like it more.
Verdict: The cast do a great job, but it could have been a far greater film had it been directed by, say Spike Lee or Quinten Tarantino.