Review - Antoine Fuqua's Training Day (2.5 out of 4 stars)

Ethan Hawke, an actor I usually enjoy watching, teams up with Denzel Washington in the first of the two “twisted buddy flicks” I got to see. Denzel’s narc Alonzo Harris, a decorated 13-year veteran with a long list of collars and with a reputation of getting the men on his team promoted quickly. Ethan is Hoyt, an ambitious, idealistic young gun who want to make detective in the worst way. Hoyt figures that becoming a narc on Alonzo’s team is the fastest way to get promoted, so he signs up. Harris meets Hoyt at the beginning of the day and tells him that it’s training day – Hoyt has just that day to convince Alonzo that he’s got what it takes to be a narc.

Alonzo’s a loose cannon, the “end justifies the means” kind of cop. Over half the film is used to establish Alonzo’s methods and his morality. Hoyt and Harris spend a lot of time in Harris’s car going from place to place. They get to talk about Harris’s methods being the only thing that works in the real world, versus Hoyt’s idealistic sense of how things should be done. Training Day is a struggle for Hoyt’s mind and soul.

Hawke and Washington provide their usual excellent performances. Denzel gets to play a character that’s a bit over the top at points, and he looks like he’s having some fun. Antoine Fuqua does a decent job with the look and feel of the film. He’s really in his element with city films, with close-in shots, street chases and guns. I feel the film could have been tightened up a bit more – it suffers from some pacing hiccups. The audience is probably two or three steps ahead of Hoyt in figuring things out, and many of the scenes used to spell out the situation were arguably unnecessary.

Bottom line: Good film, but nothing extraordinary.