Two thirds of an excellent movie

Rating: Null/10 (12 August 2002)

I have very mixed emotions about "Training Day." I want to say it was one of the best movies of 2001. However...
Denzel Washington is great, very much deserving of the Academy Award he won. And Ethan Hawke is quite good as well. Not to mention Scott Glenn, Tom Berenger, Cliff Curtis and so on and so on. For the first 70 minutes, I was loving it. However...
About 70 minutes into the movie the movie takes a wrong turn from which it never quite recovers.
But those first 70 minutes! Wow! What a movie! Jake Hoyt (Hawke) is a young LA policeman who has just transferred into the narcotics division. His first day on the job, a training day, he is introduced to and will serve with Alonzo Harris (Washington). Hoyt knows he must make a good impression on Harris or he will be washed out of the department.
Hoyt quickly discovers, however, that Harris is a very unconventional policeman. Hoyt does things "by the book." Harris does not. Hoyt knows there are certain lines a policeman must not cross. Harris doesn't care what lines he has to cross as long as he gets the job done. So who is right and who is wrong? Is a little bit, maybe even a lot, of rule breaking okay for the police as long as they are succeeding at their job? In the narcotics division, do the ends justify the means?
If the movie had stayed at this level, "Training Day" could have been one of the best cop movies ever made. However...
70 minutes into the movie it takes that wrong turn. And for the last half hour it devolves into just another Hollywood Good Guy vs. Bad Guy movie. A very stylish and well done Good Guy vs. Bad Guy movie to be sure. However...
See it for Washington's performance. See it because, whatever its faults, it is a very well made movie. However...it could have been so much more.