Training Day (DVD)

My next review is well another Denzel Washington film. I praised the role he played in American Gangster, but this next film was simply his best performance yet, and was dually noted when he won an academy award for best actor. I'm reviewing training day, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke and Eva Mendez. The film was released in cinemas in late 2001 and lasts roughly 122 minutes. For me this was the film that defined Denzel, his character portrayal was something we had not seen from an actor for some time now, and the film really suited him. I remember going to watch this film in the cinema, my friends had hyped the film up after ...  Read the complete review

Denzel Washington won the best actor award Oscar for portraying corrupt cop Alonzo Harris. In the movie there is a secondary character Jake Hoyt (Hawke). Actually Jake is the hero as Alonzo is the bent cop. Anyway the film is shot over 24 hour period. Harris works in the drug enforcement part of the LAPD. Hoyt is the new recruit in this department. Harris takes him out on the first day to give experience to the new rookie. The acting is tense and serious. I am not sure about the plot. Would this type of thing happen in LAPD? In one day so much action takes place and the bent cop reveals all the secrets to the rookie and invites him to join in the ...  Read the complete review

Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Ayer "Training Day" was one of those seminal films from 2001. It is a stylised, cool and kinetic ride that never lets up very similar in story to "Narc" but mixed with Fuquas slick direction style established in "The replacement Killers". "Training Day" tells the story of patrol cop Jake Hoyts (Ethan Hawke) first day working with the narcotics devision. He is paired up with Alonzo Harris (Denzel Washington) and things very quickly go south as Hoyts mild mannered, by-the-book, moralistic approach is very quickly put to the test by Harris' abrasive and often violent approach ...  Read the complete review

When I think of the trouble I went to, in order to get a copy of this movie on DVD, I could weep. It transpires that all the major video rental outlets are currently in the midst of a big time quarrel with Warner Bros regarding the amount of money they charge for their rental only DVDs. Despite the movie’s retail release several weeks ago, Blockbuster has no plans currently to obtain copies of this film for rental, and neither do Global Video (their only competitors in my area). I finally tracked down a copy to an independent store, and so was finally able to settle down and watch one of the more acclaimed movies of the last twelve months. And was highly ...  Read the complete review

Having taken a trip to the cinema to see Denzel Washington's latest cinematic offering last Friday night, we decided to settle down on the sofa on Sunday with one of his older movies. So having decided it had to be another Denzel movie I decided it had to be Training Day as I hadn't seen it for a while and Pip had never seen it. The film was originally released back in 2001 and was subject to quite a bit of hype and press attention. At the time I had wondered whether it was justified but as with most Denzel films I felt I couldn't go wrong either way. The film takes on a kind of 24 approach with the events in the movie taking place in one day. Of course this ...  Read the complete review