Whoa!!! PIPE down there DENZEL!!!

Rating: 8/10 (8 April 2002)

What's great about Training Day is that it never goes too far over the top. Judging by some of the comments already posted on this page, there are a lot of people who disagree with me on this one. But I thought the whole movie was nicely restrained, right up until the climax (is this review beginning to read like a write up for a high class porn flick?).
Yes, yes, so Denzel Washington spends MOST of THE film TALKING like THIS (!!!!), his eyes continually twinkling with a mixture of mischievousness and raw insanity. But if there's one actor who you don't mind over acting, then it's Denzel. Imagine Al Pacino in the same role - although Al would definitely have looked even more ridiculous than Washington going round calling everyone his "DAWG" and Ethan Hawke his "nigga". Did Washington deserve the Oscar for this film... yeah, kind of... well, no... he just deserved the Oscar that he didn't win for Malcom X.
Yet the whole time I was watching Training Day I just knew the final scenes would spoil it. I knew that Hollywood conventions would dictate that the film had to end with Washington and Hawke beating the living be-jaysus out of each other, sustaining several gun shot wounds and facial injuries in the process.
Yet the final fight was really well staged, not asking the viewer to really believe that scrawny Ethan Hawke could really batter big buff Denzel. I mean, earlier in the film they asked us to believe that Ethan Hawke (a man whose eyelids look like they're on loan from Droopy Dog) had never schmoked the demon weed before... C'mon.
Training Day is an interesting study in nihilism and is largely about, as another user has already commented, how important a set of rigid set of ethics should be to the public servants sent out to protect us. Yet the film never really resolves this issue - Ethan Hawke's character is shown to be deeply principled but largely unable to do his job because of his lack of street savvy and pragmatism, while Washington's Alonzo is shown to be resourceful and charismatic but ultimately careless and evil. So who does the screenwriter think should be patrolling the streets: Ethan? Denzel? Dr Dre (who's actually not as bad as you'd think)?
Needless to say, I won't be signing up to join the LAPD just yet...