Could have been truly great

Rating: Null/10 (23 February 2004)

SPOILERS COULD BE CONTAINED HEREIN!
The problem with Training Day is not that it's an ordinary film. Far from that, Training Day is a great action film that takes a brutal look at the drug scene and how cops can get lured into its seamier side. The problem is that it could have been a lot lot more than just that.
The way I see it there are two threads operating in this film. One is the whole angle of the Training Day. Which is essentially Ethan Hawke's presence in the film and the dynamic of his interaction with Denzel Washington as a rookie cop on his first day. The second angle is that of Denzel Washington as the unconventional cop with the unconventional methods, who finally goes corrupt in a system that's too big and ugly for him.
My issue is this - while it can be argued that the first (the training day angle) is nothing more than a plot device, I personally found that it became, at many times, an unnecessary extra storyline.
I wish for this - I wish, in some manner, the film had stuck to the downfall of the cop, and not cluttered it with Ethan Hawke's character's presence (no issue with his performance, just his character). I wish it had reduced his presence to a narrator, a fly on the wall, in some way. I wish they'd moulded his character to be like a little man in the big world of drug crime, watching and trying to make sense of what's going on. I wish, in fact, that they'd stuck to the main story - that of an unconventional, yet corrupt cop caught in corrupt world and doing desperate things to cope with it.
I feel if this had happened, the film could have been something else altogether. A niche tragedy about a particular profession. A story of the downfall of one powerful man. Perhaps (at a stretch) a bit like how Wall Street is a tragedy about the business world and how it can eat up its very own. Training Day could have been an awesome commentary on the meaning of survival and the sometimes difficult choices one has to make to survive. It could have had us empathising much more with Denzel's character, even while loathing it for his flaws.
Unfortunately, the film doesn't entirely play upon this aspect, and in trying to be one too many things, seems to loose its way. No doubt, some elements of greatness are present, or I wouldn't even be writing this - but unfortunately by showing us how good it 'could' have been, the film ends up leaving you unsatisfied. It, of course, remains a terrific action movie worth a look. Unfortunately, it remains just that.