Unbelievable coincidence

Rating: 2/10 (26 January 2007)

In Altman's "The Player" there is a subplot that involves a writer of a film who insists that his film retains his dark "non-Hollywood" ending--he is adamant during his pitches that "life is like that" and that people don't always live and that endings aren't always happy. He ends up selling out, and his movie has a stereotypical Hollywood ending in which a character played by Bruce Willis pulls a daring last second rescue of the formerly doomed heroine, played by Julia Roberts, complete with snappy exchange between the characters.
In "Training Day" there is a unrealistic coincidence that allows Ethan Hawke's character to survive a situation where he should have died; I immediately thought about "The Player". I can hear the producers insisting that the hero (Hawke) survive, and that the villain (Washington) get a comeuppance. They may have shot an ending in which Hawke dies, and Denzel Washington's character goes on leading his corrupt life, but like in "The Player", it "didn't test well" with audiences in an advanced screening.
I also was never convinced that Denzel could be so rotten, the fact that he always played heroes weighed on my ability to suspend disbelief, but that is my own subjective opinion. Denzel certainly played the character well, but I am not alone in my opinion that the Academy gave him the Oscar as a "makeup" for his being passed over before.
What ruined the movie for me was the pat ending, and the coincidence that allowed it.