Training Day (2006)

I must say, my preconceptions about Training Day were all wrong. The trailer I saw in the theatres made it look like a belated ripoff of The Corruptor, while director Antoine Fuqua's disastrous fumble with The Replacement Killers several years ago did nothing to boost my confidence.

My doubts were dispelled the minute Denzel Washington looked up from his newspaper. It is indeed good to see Washington, one of the most gifted actors of our time, abandon the saintly martyrs he's been prone to playing for 10 years and sink his teeth into a role which allows him to show a mix of deep charisma and dangerous viciousness. That same alchemy had made his breakthrough performance in 1989's Glory amazingly compelling, and in Training Day, there isn't a single moment where Washington is less than completely absorbing. Ethan Hawke also gives the performance of his career as Jake Hoyt, an idealistic but easily swayed young cop who finds himself drawn into a web of corruption, violence, and twisted morals.

Fuqua's directing is still overly stylish at times, but after a hyperactive first act, the film begins to roar. David Ayer's script is dazzling, a combination of rat-a-tat street vernacular and relentless forward momentum, and after the midpoint of the movie, the intensity of the scenes would reach incredible levels. And that's when Fuqua's show-offy camerawork finds a raison d'etre. In this film, Fuqua even finds room for some comparatively simple scenes which are really like a breath of fresh air to his filmmaking -for example, the "you're a leader" car scene, and that beautifully understated ending shot. I hope he makes this part of his regular style, because there's only so much virtuoso camera one can take before it gets tiring, as is the case in the opening of the film.

A white-knuckle thriller, well worthy of the accolades it received. I stand humbly corrected on my original predictions.

In all honesty, I had grown a bit tired of Denzel Washington's "goodie-two-shoes" roles in recent years, as great as they were. His performance in TRAINING DAY, however, has given me newfound respect for him as an actor. Not only does he play "the bad guy," but he milks it for all its worth his Alonzo Harris would make Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY look like Barney Fife from "The Andy Griffith Show." The last time I walked out of a movie theater so rattled was after seeing DANTE'S PEAK in the early '90s mainly for its special effects. In TRAINING DAY, it was Denzel Washington's performance alone that blew me away! The fact that he has recently received his fifth Oscar nomination and third for Best Actor should come as no surprise.

Kudos also to Ethan Hawke for a great performance and a well-deserved Supporting Actor Oscar nod this year. Any young actor who can hang with the likes of Denzel Washington in a film like this DESERVES recognition. Hawke proves that he has a stellar film career ahead of him.

The Academy Awards telecast is March 24, and my money is on both these tremendous performers to come away with well-deserved Oscar gold. TRAINING DAY is a film with no special effects, no colorful cinematography, and no Picasso-esque art direction just a movie that slaps you upside the hide from start to finish, with two powerhouse performances that stay with you long after the closing credits.

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I've had many conversations with my friends about this movie. Conversations turned into debates. Debates turned into arguments. And there are many, many things to argue about concerning this particular movie, which I guess is part of its allure, at least for me. Whether it was realistic or not. Whether Denzel's performance, while indisputably good, was Oscar-worthy or not. Whether it was too violent, or simply a portrayal of the violence that goes on every day in a big city.

One at a time.

I believe this movie is realistic in all aspects dealing with the situations on the street. There are vicious people who's kill you just as soon as look at you. People who are out to get your money and your livelihood. People out to take your heart, sometimes literally. I believe that there are no clear-cut right or wrong answers out on the street. You just have to stick to some basic code of conduct and hope everything works itself out. I believe that not all cops are the knights-in-shining-armor people would like them to be in this post-September 11th world. That's probably not the most fashionable thing to say right now, but that's what I believe. I believe that mostly good and decent men can be corrupted by that sense of power and authority. And since my father was a cop in West Philly for 20 years, I have a pretty fair basis for my beliefs.

Whether Denzel's performance was Oscar-worthy or not... I don't put much stock in the Academy Awards myself. Usually, the Academy's criteria and mine differ a great deal. But they are supposed to reward people for excellence in film, and on that basis, Denzel certainly did deserve it. You could see the subtle shifts in Alonzo's character from scene to scene. Now, I didn't believe the character was stereotypical. If anything could be construed as stereotypical, it was his street persona. But that was only a persona, only a part of the character. It was the glimpses of the good man still lurking inside that made the character fresh and original. There isn't another actor working today that could've captured all those nuances. No Hopkins, no DeNiro, no Pacino, no Rush... nobody. He most definitely earned that Oscar, for what it's worth. And even if--IF--it was only a "freebie" for ignoring his tour-de-force performance as Malcolm X, it was certainly no different from Russell Crowe's situation last year, when he won for "Gladiator" after being passed over for "The Insider" a year before. And that reparation didn't even have the added wrinkle of any white actors having been ignored for 3 decades.

About the violence... I've never lived in LA. I've never even been off the East Coast, so I can't say I know how it is there. But I do know how it is here. This movie has no more violence in it than anything you might see on 52nd Street, or K & A, or 5th and Lehigh, or the Badlands, or even Broad and Olney, where I saw a crackhead jump on the hood of a man's car and promptly get the [stuff] beaten out of him. (If you live in Philly, or have ever lived here for an extended period, you know the areas I'm talking about.) It's not violent for the sake of violence, like other Hollywood movies. It's violent because it's a reflection of a certain lifestyle which happens to be very violent sometimes. That's what I believe.

Now I don't think that my opinion will change anybody's mind about this movie one way or the other, but maybe it'll help you see the other side of the argument. But if you haven't seen the movie, don't let this review or any other review sway you. Watch it with an open mind and judge for yourself.

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Back in the "go go" 1980s, during the heady era of Wall Street "greed," I read an article about a black stock broker indicted by the SEC for insider trading. It struck me that, in an odd way, this was indicative of progress for African-Americans. They had to have access to the inside in order to be indicted for it. In the old days, they never would have had those doors opened in the first place.

Which brings me to "Training Day", in which Denzel Washington delivers an astonishingly good performance as a totally corrupt and evil L.A. cop. The fact that an African-American leading man is portrayed as the "bad guy" is truly groundbreaking, and just another reason to look at this film and be in awe of it. In the same strange twist as the stock broker, here we see a black cop who has all the doors of sin open to him. Like the white cops of the Jim Crow South, he takes to corruption in a way that has no skin color. It is the story of humanity, temptation and power.

Blacks on film have for a number of years now been shown either one way or the other. There is no shortage of depictions of black drug dealers, gangbangers and "homies." Hollywood then tries to make up for it by portraying blacks as doctors, lawyers, voices of conscience or reason, and the most frequent stereotype, the "tough but fair police commander."

The negative portrayals of blacks, however, were never played by big name actors. Washington himself has built a career as a guy more or less saving the world in "Crimson Tide" and "Fallen". His flaws in "Ricochet" are brought out only by a vindictive white man (John Lithgow). In "Training Day", Denzel is all on his charismatic own, a product of a world that he is convinced revolves around him. By choosing to pursue this amazing role, Denzel demonstrates the kind of courage that is rare among actors.

Think of Robert Redford, for instance. Redford never let his hair down. He played heroes and fantasy figures. Every so often, however, a superstar will break type. Paul Newman did it in "Hud". So did Robert Duvall in "The Great Santini".

What is even more astonishing in "Training Day" is not just that a black guy is the bad guy, but a white guy (Ethan Hawke) is a clearly marked, unfettered hero, placed in utter contrast and opposition to the villain. "Candy Man", a B movie franchise of the early 1990s, featured the politically explosive portrayal of a black man slicing and dicing his way through white women, but this was hardly big time fare.

"Training Day" takes all the Political Correctness of the past 20 years and explodes it. Hawke not only is innocent and good in contrast with Denzel, but he is a Lancelot-type figure who comes to the aid of a Latino-girl-in-distress, and later faces torture and terror at the hands of a group of Mexican gangbangers. The actors who portray these guys are so good, so real and so terrifying that if you met them on the streets, even knowing they were just acting, you would be a little frightened.

By no means does "Training Day" leave the viewer groping with the uncomfortable notion that "white is right." The performances are too real and too powerful. It is only in retrospect that one realizes this is truly groundbreaking stuff. Denzel Washington is extraordinary. His performance in this film is among the very best ever seen. There are not enough superlatives, not enough words, than can do justice to his edgy power.

"Training Day" leaves the thinking viewer utterly exhausted and left in some kind of daze, grateful only that they do not live in the netherworld shown herein. Look at Ethan's face when he rides the bus after escaping, through pure luck and coincidence, death at the hands of the gangbangers. He is beaten. His actions afterwards are about redemption, a decision to take his life in a new direction in which expediency and innocence are no longer options. He has been transformed into a reluctant avenging angel, forced to face evil and fear because he cannot turn back. It is the story of Original Sin. Ethan represents what the viewer does not have the gumption to be at this point. The viewer wants only to crawl in a hole and forget what (s)he has seen, but Ethan's character is about the confrontation of good vs. evil that must take place if humanity hopes to advance.

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A brutal and disturbing film that attempts to connect you with the underbelly of the streets of downtown Los Angeles, while examining that fragile, thin line between those who enforce the law and those who break it, "Training Day," directed by Antoine Fuqua, is a cautionary morality tale that decidedly points out that what you do and who you are is a matter of free will and personal choice. Beyond the action, it's a study of human nature that explores the necessity of having a moral code by which to live, especially when confronted with that age-old seductress Evil, who can lure even the best of the best across that line from which there is no return. The most disconcerting aspect of the film, however, is in it's portrayal of those in high places who with facility betray those they are sworn to serve and protect, with their flagrant abuse of their position and power, and moreover, seemingly always manage to hold the high ground of advantage over those against whom their misdeeds are perpetrated. Indeed, the burden of proof must always fall to the good guy, and more often than not it is those endowed with a more positive, benevolent nature-the ones who want to do the right thing-that find justice elusive and become victims themselves, if only because of their refusal to compromise their own principles. And that is really what is at the heart of Fuqua's film, which very probably will take many viewers to a place they would rather not be. But, as Steve McQueen said in "Bullitt," when asked by his girlfriend how he can stand doing a job that keeps him so close to the gutter, "That's where half of it is--" And in today's world, unfortunately, it may well be that the percentage is even higher; which somewhat elevates the significance of this film.

Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), a nineteen month veteran of the L.A.P.D., is about to begin his first day on a new assignment, having landed a spot in the Narcotics Division, where he will be a member of a small squad under the direction of Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington)-if he measures up to Alonzo's stringent expectations. It's a job he wants, because he sees it as an opportunity to really do some good in the community; it's a place from which he can help rid the streets of drug dealers and other felons. But he quickly discovers that-as most worthwhile things are in life-it's just not that easy. As Alonzo is quick to point out, "If you want to protect the sheep from the wolf, you have to become a wolf. It's the wolf that catches the wolf--" Jake also learns that on this day he's going to have to make a lot of decisions, and make them quickly, without the luxury of time to consider all of the possible ramifications. And one of them is put to him directly by Alonzo, who tells him he's going to have to decide what he wants to be, a sheep-or a wolf. It's something he's going to have to know by the end of the day; and Jake doesn't know it going in, but this day, his "Training Day," is going to be a day that will change his life forever.

Fuqua's film is presented honestly and in such a way that it successfully puts the viewer on the streets of L.A., and Jake and Alonzo are credible characters; but the motivation behind Alonzo's ruthlessness is fairly anemic and under-developed. The weakness of the film, in fact, lies in the screenplay (by David Ayer), which though it captures a certain sense of "street-wise" reality, is otherwise rather formulaic and doesn't really have the depth it needs to make it emotionally involving. ...As Alonzo, Denzel Washington gives an excellent performance-and, quite frankly, this film would be less than average without him-but whether or not it is deserving of an Oscar is open to speculation. Washington is one of the finest actors in the business, without question, and he's taken on some challenging roles (in which he's been very successful) that make this part pale by comparison. Alonzo Harris is more along the lines of Mel Gibson's Riggs in "Lethal Weapon," or Eastwood's Harry in "Dirty Harry," the difference being that Alonzo is the bad guy. It's a credit to Washington's ability that he was able to make this such a strong character, however, and his Alonzo is certainly believable and real. And, in retrospect, perhaps it is an Oscar-worthy performance; it had to be to overcome the weakness of the script and what he was given to work with. And, again, without Denzel Washington, this film plays for two weeks in the theater and is quickly forgotten when it hits the video store shelf.

Hawke gives a strong performance, as well, but that he received an Oscar nomination for it is the stuff of which debates are born. Like Washington, however, Hawke does do a good job of bringing his character to life, and it is one of the strengths of the film.

The supporting cast includes Tom Berenger (Stan), Harris Yulin (Doug) and Scott Glenn (Roger). In the final analysis, "Training Day" is elevated by the performances of it's stars; without them, this one has no legs.

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