I was expecting much more

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2002)

I recently rented the DVD of this film after Denzel's Oscar win and hearing much positive buzz and when I finally sat down to watch it, I found myself at first enthralled, and later horribly dissappointed.
Training Day started off as a promising look at what sort of justice is necessary for a narcotics cop to be effective with Ethan Hawke serving as a young and idealistic cop and Denzel Washington as a jaded cop who seems willing to perform questionable acts in the pursuit of justice. And then we just get a straight up black vs. white (racially and idealogically) battle of good cop against hopelessly corrupt cop who has to be taken down. I was expecting to have my views of justice challenged only to have them confirmed in an annoyingly simple manner.
Sure, the film was skillfully crafted. The performances were great (though I still think Tom Wilkinson was robbed considering his great performance in "In the Bedroom" and the fact that Denzel seems to be having a ball hamming it up in this part having done MUCH better work in earlier films), the direction energetic and the overall production was very solid and effectively gritty. I just can't get over how the film degenerated into standard clichés.
7 out of 10