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The only reason anyone should want to see Training Day is to catch an extremely rare glimpse of Denzel Washington playing a bad guy. The actor has made a career of portraying characters who are decent, hard-working and constantly struggling against some force that tries to keep them down (it's usually Whitey von Crackermeister), so it's a real treat to see him tackle something new for a change (not unlike Harrison Ford - Washington's white counterpart - in last summer's What Lies Beneath).
Washington (Remember the Titans) really chews the scenery in this role, in which he plays LAPD Detective Alonzo Harris, the head of an ultra-elite undercover narcotics squad. Day, just as the title suggests, covers one day in the life of Alonzo and his troop's latest recruit, still-wet-behind-the-ears Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke, Hamlet). So, with that one-sentence description, Day has already covered the two biggest cop-flick clichés: the black guy/white guy thing (popularized by Lethal Weapon) and the rookie/veteran thing (which strives to be as good as Colors, but comes off closer to Osmosis Jones).
Day is told through the eyes of Jake, who has only been on the job for 19 months and wants to catch the fast track to running his own department as soon as possible so he can move his hot wife (Charlotte Ayanna) and their baby out of the cramped apartment in which they currently live. The titular day is his first in a temporary assignment that could potentially land him in Alonzo's rogue bunch on a permanent basis. He's an eager beaver, but Jake knows he's in for a bumpy ride with Alonzo from their first meeting. Within 30 minutes, Alonzo has him jaywalking, drinking beer and smoking laced marijuana with a cocked gun jammed into his temple. And you thought your office orientation was bad.
As Day progresses, the clearly out-of-control Alonzo requires Jake to do crazier and crazier things in an attempt to both prove his worth to the unit and make the film more interesting. In a speech similar to that of Woody Allen's character in The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Alonzo explains you've got to be a wolf to catch the wolves, while poor stoned Jake is left to mutter things like "I should've been a fireman." Not only does Alonzo forbid Jake from filling out reports and making radio contact back to base, he get pissed off when his trainee jumps out of the car to stop an attempted rape.
Their adventure includes trips to see Alonzo's mentor (Scott Glenn, Vertical Limit), Alonzo's ho (Eva Mendes, Urban Legends: Final Cut) and a trio of popular musical artists (Snoop Dogg, Macy Gray and Dr. Dre), but the trouble with Day is you know how it's going to end before the lights go down, and it takes forever to get there. That's not to say, however, that it's not occasionally stylish and fun (thanks to director Antoine Fuqua, Bait).
The film's first half begins promisingly but the second is laughably far-fetched, and the ending is kind of a letdown. The fact that all of this stuff happens in under 24 hours makes Day slightly less believable than Legally Blonde. But screenwriter David Ayer (The Fast and the Furious) isn't exactly well-known for creating plausible ideas, either. I couldn't help thinking about how Day would have been received if its roles were reversed racially, with a corrupt white LAPD detective schooling a naïve black rookie (actually, that kind of sounds more interesting, doesn't it?). As it is, the film could still potentially rile some who are convinced police corruption is rampant and widespread (possible new LAPD motto: "We break more laws before you wake up than you'll break all day"), which is probably why Day's release was pushed back two weeks after pro-police sentiment swept the country in the wake of the World Trade Center attack.
As far as Washington goes, it's fun to see him cast against type, but his performance is way too far over the top. Sure, he's a bad guy, but he's a really likeable bad guy. Hawke does well but doesn't really have too much to work with here and seems fairly content in letting Washington do everything but look directly into the camera and scream, "Look at me! I'm playing a bad guy! Can you believe it? Me! Denzel! Notice me!"
2:02 - R for brutal violence, pervasive language, drug content and brief nudity
========== X-RAMR-ID: 29516 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 250598 X-RT-TitleID: 1110027 X-RT-SourceID: 595 X-RT-AuthorID: 1146 X-RT-RatingText: 6/10
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