See it for Denzel

Rating: 8/10 (29 October 2001)

What can I say Denzel is the MAN. He just steals the show.
Training Day focuses on Ethan Hawke's character (Jake Hoyt), a young LAPD cop. He is on his first day to start off in a new position to work in the narcotics division. Jake is eager, he tells his wife how excited and nervous he is for this assignment comparing it to first day of high school football tryouts. Jake plays by the book, is intelligent and strong, but his world is about to be turned upside down by a hardcore veteran named Alonzo Harris played by Denzel Washington.
Alonzo takes Jake on a ride of insanity through the drug plagued worlds of Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in gritty Los Angeles. Alonzo is hard, he is succesful and good at what he does, but he does things differently. Alonzo is essentialy a cop who makes his own rules, and this of course creates a conflict for Jake. After a few minor routine assignments it's easy to see that Alonzo is dirty. In short Alonzo's attitude to fighting crime is simple, to beat the street you have to be harder than the thugs and pushers who inhabit it. But Alonzo has been doing this far too long and is in a lot of trouble.
This movie COULD have been a bad exercise in good cop bad cop shlock. But what evolves is a very well acted character study of 2 men with different views on how crime should be fought (in fact 2 polar extremes). Denzel is masterful as Alonzo playing one of the most feared dirty cops I have ever seen on film, and Hawke as Jake does what he does well in most films, playing tormented characters caught in a bad situation and looking very shocked and perplexed. There are great scenes of dialogue between the 2 such as when Alonzo asks why Jake wanted to join the squad. Jake replies that he wants to get drugs off the streets and give something back to the community, and Alonzo only replies what is the real reason you joined narcotics? Jake then says, "Cause I want to make detective". It is this line that is the basis of Training Day.
With that, director Antoine Fuqua's work of pictured gang plagued LA is masterful. Black distraught neighborhoods, Hispanic tatooed thugs sitting around a card table, Fuqua creates hell and shows it brilliantly. There is some good cinematography and a good score (but used too infrequently) creating a nightmarish uneasyness. It's also wonderful to see Denzel play a bad guy for a change and play it sooooo well. When Alonzo is interogating suspects you can't help but squirm in your seat while you watch him on screen.
The film tries to tie in a plot, so that it can create a conclusion in the end. It isn't that distracting or even neccesary but it only shows the inevitable of Alonzo's work. The film ends unresolved and this is good, because the film isn't about the good guy winning and the bad guy getting his just desserts, it's about how 2 men of different moral belief try to survive and do what is right. There are no heroes in this film, just great characters.
While the use of placing 2 well known rap starts in cameo rolls, 1 Snoop Doggy as a wheelchair pushing crack dealer [good acting], 2 Dr Dre. as a cop henchman for Alonzo [bad acting], was really unnecesary. While Snoop holds his own in the spotlight Dre's acting is just so canned. Minor points, but I'd EASILY recommend this for Denzel's performance alone.
Rating 8 out of 10.