Training Day *
Directed by: Antoine Fuqua
Starring: Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke
Written by: David Ayer
Rated R (violence, language, drug use, brief nudity)
I have never walked out of a movie before. I don’t intend to start doing so. But, man alive, did this flick try my patience.
Training Day is about Jake Hoyt (Hawke)’s first day in training to be a narc. His ‘mentor’ is Alonzo Harris (Washington), a veteran of the LAPD narcotics beat. Now, Hoyt isn’t a true rookie – he’s been a cop for over a year, but he wants to be a detective. One good way to become one is by training in narcotics. Alonzo has been on this beat for years, and is considered one of the best. What better training ground could there be? During his day of training, Hoyt learns to disregard the 4th Amendment, lie, use drugs, and all sorts of other things a good cop shouldn’t do.
Now, there is some validity to having an undercover cop or narc be familiar with the quality of drugs, but they must also remain above the culture. Donnie Brasco and Rush both showed this very well. Training Day does not.
I have a host of complaints about this movie. I’m going to address them in no particular order.
1) The story made no sense at all. It starts off fine – Alonzo is a typical hard-nosed narc with little to no patience with a rookie who wants to be a do-gooder. The street has no patience for those types. Ok – I’ll buy that. But then, all of a sudden, we’re in the middle of a mystery, and we have no idea where it started or what the details are. We know that Russians are involved, and some other guy, and then all of a sudden we make a bust that makes even less sense, and then, the movie doesn’t end. It keeps going, adding new subplots, and don’t even think that any of these are going to be resolved at the end. And then the movie is over.
2) Alonzo is not likable. Yes, he’s a tough cop. Yes, he uses methods that aren’t exactly legal. But Washington gives the audience nothing about his character to like. We grew to like Sgt. Hartman in Full Metal Jacket. We liked Darth Vader. We saw the humanity in those characters. Washington is a very good actor, and has the awards to prove it. I don’t know if it was the way the character was written or what, but we are given nothing about Alonzo to like. We aren’t allowed to see his humanity.
3) The pacing is terrible. This movie went on and on and on, and just kept going after it had stopped making sense. Now, this, I don’t understand. Fuqua started off directing music videos (This is not a bad thing – David Fincher, who directed Se7en and Fight Club started out the same way. As did Spike Jonze, who made Being John Malkovich.). He should understand pacing. He directed The Replacement Killers, which starred Chow Yun-Fat and Mira Sorvino – he can obviously work with actors. So, I’m not sure what happened. Perhaps the editor should be canned. Or the writer. Someone, anyway.
4) There was no closure. In a good-cop-bad-cop movie, the audience NEEDS closure. We need moral resolution. We need to have an epilogue, or at least, a hint that leads us towards a future conclusion. We hear about 'evidence', but don't see how this evidence is used. The ending isn't existensial like Chinatown, it isn't a romantic bummer like John Woo's The Killer -- it just is.
I’m done making my list. There are just too many things to go into with this movie. I’m not about to write a spoiler for those of you who still insist on seeing this movie, but I will advise you to reconsider. There are plenty of other movies opening this week.
