Training Day (2001)

Before we begin Depp Week 2010 here at The Cinema King, we're going to flashback to 2001 for a look at the performance that netted Denzel Washington a much-deserved Academy Award: dishonest cop Alonzo Harris in Training Day.

The film is pretty much a Denzel Washington performance with a plot and a few other actors around it, but there's a formula to a Cinema King review, so let's remain consistent: It's Jake Hoyt's (Ethan Hawke) first day on the job as a narcotics officer, and he's assigned to veteran Alonzo Harris (Washington), who's got a mean streak and a penchant for dispensing brutal "street justice." Over the course of 24 hours, Jake has to decide what side of the law Alonzo is on - and what side he himself wants to be on.

I really liked this movie - in fact, I fully expected to - so I'm not going to kid around about it. I've never met a Denzel Washington movie I didn't like, and Training Day is no exception. To keep the food metaphors going, it's a little like a steak - I'd been interested for a long time but was waiting for just the right moment; it didn't disappoint but rather is now something I'll be ready to revisit later (just not every day). It's just delicious. If I have a complaint about this movie, it's that there are scenes where Denzel isn't on camera, and when it's a performance this fine we feel cheated when he's not the permanent center of attention. (Of interesting note: an early choice for the role was Samuel L. Jackson; not sure how that would have compared to what we have here, but it makes me long for a prequel crossover between this and Lakeview Terrace.)

I've said before that the hallmark of any Denzel Washington performance is the way he conveys the fun that he's having into the audience. Maybe it's his infectious grin, or maybe it's his discreet naturalism - whatever it is, it's working. Alonzo Harris is fascinating in a way that a lot of crooked cop characters aren't; where most are fairly one-dimensional, Alonzo is unique in that he's deceptively sympathetic. Like Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost, Alonzo is compelling to the extent that the audience might actually begin sympathizing with him - coming from Alonzo, taking drugs and setting up a dealer for a fall all sound like good ideas until we remember that this is the bad guy talking. It's not difficult to see, then, why Jake begins to be seduced by Alonzo's ideas; Hawke's performance doesn't hurt, either, since here he's as good as he was in Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.

It's part of the trivia surrounding Training Day that its screenplay was written by one man and one man only, with no team of rewriters - David Ayer, who does a taut job introducing plot aspects and tying together loose ends which seem at first to be disconnected. The dialogue is sterling, too, realistic while still presenting itself as quotable: Denzel's closing monologue is already a staple for Denzel impressionists, and you'll be riffing a few of your favorite lines in the days to come, I'll bet. Fuqua's direction is on top, too, particularly in a grueling scene in which Jake finds himself at gunpoint in a room full of angry gang members.

But the film's greatest strength is turning Denzel loose and letting him work his magic. That alone - the opportunity to see one of the greatest living actors work his magic in a role that isn't exactly the type he's known for. Training Day is a far cry from John Q (the film that introduced me to Denzel), but it's as compelling a performance as any other one he's given... and maybe it's even his best (I'm still enamored with Malcolm X as the topper).
Training Day is rated R "for brutal violence, pervasive language, drug content and brief nudity." Definitely one of the more in-your-face violent movies, without shyness when it comes to gore or intensity; of course there are F-bombs galore and some heavy drug use in a few scenes, as well as an attempted rape and a fleeting scene of out-of-focus nudity.