Bad day at the office, dear? (Training Day (DVD))

Member Name: george_lazenby

Product:	Training Day (DVD)
Date:	16/02/02 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Performances, locations

Disadvantages: Very familiar situation

It's become a cliché to describe Denzel Washington as the finest black actor of his generation, though this completely obscures the crucial point about Washington's career - that he is just one of the finest actors of his generation, whatever their colour. Indeed, his success is based on the fact that he has successfully fought for parts his white contemporaries could have had: 'Crimson Tide'. Philadelphia', even routine movies like 'The Bone Collector'. Nevertheless, Washington does seem to behave as if he sees himself as representative of black people - he has a tendency to play upstanding, role model parts (he is unquestionably the modern heir to Gregory Peck and Henry Fonda in this regard), as if he wants to set a good example.

In this way, had I been casting 'Training Day', my first thought would have been to have Washington play Jake Hoyt, an idealistic policeman who genuinely wants to do some good, and has to spend a training day with a seasoned narcotics officer Alonzo Harris, who seems to have a slightly more pragmatic, if not cavalier, approach to the law. But Hoyt is played by Ethan Hawke, and Washington is Harris.

Antonie Fuqua's film plays on the upstanding roles Washington has previously played - as the day goes on, Harris goads Hoyt into ever more risky and compromising situations, forever with the justification that on the streets, you need to be practical, not tied down by propriety or laws that get in the way. When Harris tells Hoyt that he's only telling it like it is, despite the ferocity of Washington's performance, despite the excesses in which Hoyt is involved, you want to believe him. In this way, 'Training Day' steps away from simply being a well-acted, well-made thriller into something more interesting.

Hoyt wants to do the right thing, but Harris increasingly seems to say that only by doing a succession of wrong things can this be achieved. As the day wears
on, Hoyt is talked into trying drugs, they allow criminals to go free, torture informants, and rip off drug dealers. All the while, it seems that something is building up, and Harris plans to end the day with a move against a big local drug dealer. The chief issue in the film is whether Harris is for real, using controversial methods to hit the real criminals, or whether Hoyt has been hooked up with a corrupt psychotic - and it's an issue they sustain brilliantly all the way to the predictably violent conclusion.

Technically, the film is strong. Best known for a rather plastic attempt at a US version of a Hong Kong action film ('The Replacement Killers') and getting sacked from 'Entrapment', Fuqua handles the action with skill, especially considering that whole film seems to have been shot on location in Los Angeles - generally around the worst bits. It's an energetic and well-paced film, a difficult trick to pull off when you're dealing with a plot based around cumulative events rather a clear and well-defined story. As it happens, this is one of those clever films where a seemingly random assortment of details come together to make sense at the end, and Fuqua's sleight of hand is impressive.

Fundamentally though, this is Washington's film. Hawke is very good as the idealist whose principles come under siege, and there are some amusing cameos from the likes of Snoop Dogg (as a crippled street pusher) and Macy Gray as a junkie housewife having a genuinely bad hair day, but it's Washington who you can't take your eyes off. Charming but mercurial, seemingly genuine but capable of appalling cynicism and brutal violence, he inhabits the part like a second skin, and never seems to worry about whether or not the audience will like or hate him (generally, Denzel is presented as the warm human being with whom we are supposed to identify).

If a black actor receives an Oscar this year, I believe it will b
e Will Smith (for all the wrong reasons), but with this sudden and surprising change of direction, Washington proves yet again to be absolutely at the top of the game. It's a magnificent performance, and in the context of a generally intelligent and exciting film, makes for a superb reason to get out to the movies before it drops out of view,

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