Oh What a First Day!

Rating: Null/10 (10 May 2002)

I hate first days on a new job. You're nervous, not exactly sure of what to expect and all too often not sure you made the right decision to take the job in the first place. Jake Hoyt is having such a day as he starts a new job in the narcotics squad with his new bad-ass boss Alonzo Harris. Detective Harris is loud, bad and mean and knows the streets like he was born and bred in them. Is he for real? Or is he testing Jake to see if he has the right stuff to make it down these mean streets of L.A., we shall see.wont we?
Training Day, the just released on video movie that I just got around to seeing, is a nightmare first day on the job film. It's 24 hours in the life of a rookie who figures on making detective if he joins the narcotics squad and rids the streets of drugs and baddies. Unbeknownst to him, one of the baddest baddies is sitting right next to him, in the form of the devil himself played by now Oscar winner Denzel Washington. Denzel's Detective Harris is the devil incarnate make no mistake about it. He is the tempter in the wilderness, the one who will offer you the world if you would just bow down and worship him.just a little. Okay, just murder for him and he will grant your every wish and devour your soul in the process. In the next day, Officer Hoyt will not know what to believe and will not believe his own eyes. The ideal world he envisioned will disintegrate around him and reduce him to an animal just trying to survive. Detective Beelzebub will show him that the world is a jungle and there is a fine line between good and evil that cops have to occasionally jump to and from in order to survive. The lessons being dealt are tough and cruel, to the extent that the film goes from unsentimental reality to surrealism. No one can be this bad, no one can withstand this kind of punishment and fury, can they?

Being good is so much harder then being bad. Being deliciously bad is so much fun and Denzel Washington is almost giddy reveling in the flesh of Alonzo Harris. I could not take my eyes off of him, his line delivery and body language is razor sharp and he is truly one of our most gifted film actors. Every scene he is in, and he is on camera for 90% of the movie, crackles with electricity, talking street jive and howling like a wolf. Detective Harris is the alpha wolf, the leader of men, the prince of darkness who rules hell because it is preferable to serving in heaven. The film is lifted and sustained by him to heights much higher then the pulp fiction it actually is. His performance is mesmerizing and deservedly received awards and much praise.
Denzel's partner in Training Day, playing Jake Hoyt, is Ethan Hawke. His job is much harder, he is the good one, therefore the boring voice in the wilderness expressing his concerns and unsure of what to believe and do through most of his grueling first day on the job. Being good is hard work, and Mr. Hawke actually does a fine job delivering the goods. In the past, I've found him too introspective to be exciting on the screen. Too often he blends into the scenery and becomes good-looking Scandinavian furniture. But surprise, he actually holds his own beside the evil one and delivers a solid, respectable performance.
Director Antoine Fuqua's Training day is a fantasy disguised as a gritty tough street film about police corruption. Is this really going on to this extent, I don't really believe it. Are there bad cops playing both sides of the fence, sure, but the 24 hours on display here are movie hours. Nothing can be believed but it can certainly be enjoyed as a surrealistic trip thru Dante's Inferno via Los Angeles. Fuqua, much like David Fincher's Fight Club, takes us on a trip through the heart of darkness and I went along for the ride and liked most of it, especially Denzel's turn being so good at playing bad.