by Kevin Lang

You’re nearing thirty years of age, and you have a wife and a newborn child at home.  You’ve been riding the beat for years now, wearing the same navy blues day after day.  You have spent the better part of your time handling the same common offenses: ticketing speeders, responding to reports of domestic disturbance, taking statements from the victims of break-ins and robberies; always arriving too late to catch the thieves.  The paperwork is a pain, the money is little, and the job is the same everyday, that is, except for those rare moments of excitement, which are few and infrequent.  You need a change.  It’s time to get the money for a bigger house with room for your child to grow.  Your chance to do this has come.

In several months you could make detective.  Detective Jake Hoyt.  It has a nice ring.  It will mean no more uniform, no more patrol car, fewer rules and more respect, not to mention a better salary.  First, however, for the next couple of months you will have to work the streets undercover, going after the big time dealers.  Your chance to go undercover and eventually make detective rests on today.  It’s early morning, too early.  The sun is up and your nerves are on edge.  It’s the same feeling you used to get before a big game in high school.  You want to make the winning play.  You want to catch the touchdown pass and earn the victory.  You can see it.  You can taste it.  You’re determined to make detective, but first you have to survive your "Training Day."

This was the scenario that Ethan Hawke’s character, Jake Hoyt, was presented with at the beginning of "Training Day," the relentless new police drama from director Antoine Fuqua.  "Training Day" was an exercise in intensity.  It came across much like a football game.  There is an anxious anticipation before it begins, and there is a high level of energy maintained throughout.  This aspect of the plot was not new to Antoine Fuqua who previously directed Jamie Foxx in the similarly intense but less serious action/thriller "Bait" (2000).  With "Training Day," Fuqua simply honed the skills that he had utilized in his previous effort, and he took himself to another level as a director.  He has found his niche, and with the help of an outstanding performance by Denzel Washington, he has begun to exploit it to its fullest.

Denzel Washington played Alonzo Harris; a veteran undercover officer who was assigned to evaluate Jake Hoyt based on his performance over the course of his training day.  Jake’s feelings toward the undercover position changed as he learned that the interviewer, Alonzo, didn’t exactly follow protocol.  The movie became a relentless battle between right and wrong as Jake attempted to accept Alonzo’s uncharacteristic ways.  Where does the line between what is acceptable and what is not acceptable lie?  What do we do when we can no longer justify the actions of those around us, especially our superiors?  Perhaps what makes "Training Day" so effective as a film is that these questions become our own.  We want to like Alonzo, and we want to respect him.  He appeared knowledgeable and wise.  He was strong and showed no fear.  However, there was just something about him that was unnerving and questionable.  He was like the older kid on the block whom the young kids admire, but for some reason the parents just don’t trust.  He was too convincing.

At some point in the movie, near the beginning, I began to feel as if I was riding undercover with Alonzo.  Perhaps this was partially a credit to the director, Fuqua, but it was probably more a result of the quietly anxious demeanor of Hawke’s character.  He was innocent.  In the hands of Washington’s Alonzo, he was a clean slate, pure and free of corruption.  It is easy to project oneself into a character like this.  Hawke is always rather reserved and quiet in his movies, but it works well here.  His quiet demeanor came to life when the plot called for it, but throughout most of the movie the floor was clearly Denzel’s.

Denzel Washington is an actor.  He is not merely a Frabrigee shell that is only appealing on posters and TV spots.  His success has come from years of hard work and dedication to his craft.  He embodies a presence on screen that is unparalleled by the majority of his peers.  This was none the more evident than in "Training Day," which was a departure from his usual "good guy" roles.  His character of Alonzo was by no means a "good guy."  He was dishonest, corrupt, and at times seemed to be on the brink of insanity, yet he was still a likable character.  We are attracted to his personality even though we are reluctant to trust him.  A lesser actor could not have pulled this off nearly as well, but Denzel has the unique ability to adapt completely to the role he is playing.  In "Training Day" we don’t see fragments of the characters that Denzel Washington has played in previous roles.  This movie called for a different character from any which he had shown us before, and he delivered just that.

There were several memorable scenes in the film.  One came early on and unfolded as the two actors sat stopped in the middle of a busy intersection.  The traffic that was waiting to get through only acted to heighten the already out of control situation.  Another scene came later in the film when Jack realized that Alonzo had left him in the hands of a group of individuals with not so good intentions toward him.  The characters taunt him and crack jokes during a card game when for much of the scene we know what they are intending to do.  Snoop Doggy Dogg gave a good but brief performance as a wheelchair bound drug dealer.  Dr. Dre. was also in the film, playing one of Alonzo’s cohorts.

If you’re in the mood for a change from the eye candy action films of late, then you will enjoy "Training Day."  It was a bit of a departure from the usual family friendly fare that we are accustomed to seeing from Washington, and it couldn’t have come at a better time in his career.  It let him breathe as an actor, not further restricting him into any single category, not that he was greatly restricted before.

"Training Day" was not perfect, but its flaws were minor.  Denzel’s character, at times, appeared to have morals that at other times seemed to vanish.  He cared strongly for his son, yet he could kill a friend with what appeared to be no qualms at all.  He justified it as "business," although, it was hard to tell who he actually considered "friends."  His final demise seemed to be a bit of a plot device that was there for just that reason.  It did not blend as well as it should have with the rest of the story.

Despite its minor flaws, "Training Day" was a well-directed, well-cast, gritty police drama.  It takes you into the underbelly of corruption, and it leaves you there long after it is over.  In an interview to promote "Training Day," Denzel Washington said that he enjoyed playing the bad guy for a change.  At the end of the film, Denzel, in the character of Alonzo, more or less summed up himself as an actor.  In a fit of anger, he proclaimed, "King Kong ain’t got nothing on me!"  To that he is right, and neither does most of Hollywood.