Grey area (Training Day (DVD))

Member Name: Belgian999

Product:	Training Day (DVD)
Date:	08/10/02 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent acting, Tight plot, Avoids cliches

Disadvantages: Plenty of violence (which some may not like)

At first sight, it would be easy to dismiss ‘Training Day’ as just another by the numbers US police movie – rookie officer working with the experienced narcotics cop, patrolling ‘the hood’ with the black and Hispanic gangs, the good cop/bad cop and black cop/white cop interaction routines, it’s all been seen and done before, right? Well, yes, but I doubt if these issues have been handled as sensitively or as skilfully as director Antoine Fuqua has managed to do here.

It all starts off slowly enough, as you see LAPD officer Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke) getting ready for his special assignment to the drugs squad – he’s obviously nervous, and to start with is somewhat overwhelmed by the larger-than-life personality of Detective Alonzo Harris, played in a brilliantly manic style by Denzel Washington. Harris is a highly decorated narcotics officer, one of the most famous and revered on the force in LA, or so it would seem, and I warmed to his character from the start. The broad smile, the infectious laugh and apparently gung-ho attitude to crime-fighting are instantly appealing, but it soon becomes clear that there is a lot, lot more to Harris than first meets the eye.

That is what made this film work so well for me – it could so easily have become just another rites-of-passage street drama, where young Officer Hoyt earns his stripes on the street and is then taken under the wing of the maverick detective, having passed some sort of series of initiation rites. But no, this goes far, far deeper. Hoyt’s first day starts simply enough, with Harris offering some sound advice and is livened up with a routine and amusing drugs bust on some young students, but within minutes violence erupts onto the scene.

Angel dust, attempted rape, crack, blood, guns and beer, and all that before the pubs open – the first inkling that Harris might not be the police hero he is made out to be. It’s no

t often you hear a cop saying that ‘you need a beer, it helps keep you level’ and it is swiftly apparent that Harris knows a lot about drugs and the dealers - and bit by bit Fuqua reveals just how deeply he is entwined. He is not just unconventional, but really does seem to have crossed the line, that marker that separates the good guys from the bad.

I can’t really reveal any more without spoiling the plot, but suffice to say that Washington plays his part superbly, making the film for me - he really earned the Oscar. He swaggers and bellows, postures and gesticulates his way through the 2 hours, relying on bravado and a badge to see him out of any tricky situations. Ethan Hawke also comes across very well as the rookie cop, probably helped by his very youthful looks. I could quibble and say that he relies a bit too much on the ‘Bruce Willis face’ early on in the film – you know the one, the wide-eyed, open-mouthed look of stunned amazement that Mr. Die Hard has made his own over the years, but gradually his character realises more and more of what is going on around him and wises up considerably by the end of the film.

Oddly enough, some early scenes reminded me faintly of ‘Traffic’, with a yellow tinge suffusing the screen now and again, but that did not seem to be continued throughout the film. What is certain is that this is not a black and white, clear-cut picture. There is no forced interaction between the racial groups in the film, and nor is there any feeling that you are watching some remake of ‘New Jack City’ or somesuch. No great capital is made of any potential comic aspects of the gangland situation, unlike in a film such as the 2001 remake of ‘Shaft’, where the Latino ‘king snake’ also come across as quite an amusing character.

Thankfully, ‘Training Day’ is also lacking the emotional blackmail seen in many cop films, where th
e wif
e and child at home become victims as the bad guys seek out a soft target – indeed, in this film, you only really discover who the bad guys actually are in the last half hour. You feel that this is a serious situation, the characters are all credible, and the violence and tension seem very, very real indeed. The crux of the film is the fine, almost invisible line between right and wrong.

Is it so wrong to take money from drug dealers, is it so wrong to eliminate them without recourse to a court of law, is it so wrong to take the law into your own hands? Why should we make scapegoats of brave officers who stray from the straight and narrow now and again in the pursuit of ‘street justice’? And what would you do if a million dollars fell into your possession and no one knew but you? These are just some of the questions posed in ‘Training Day’, and young officer Hoyt has to deal with them. I don’t know the answers. Do you?

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