You know the feeling when you get out of a car-chase movie, and you can't keep your foot off the gas pedal? Well, I walked out of 'Training Day' with the a smug strut, my shoulders hanging low as if they have muscle on them, my jaw clenched and eyes glaring. You wouldn't know from my JC Penney Catalog columnist mug up there, but I can be very imposing.
'Training Day' is a movie about bravado'powerful, confident men challenging and testing each other. It's like watching moose summing up each other's antlers, waiting for the clash. In 'Training Day' even the antagonist is so strong in temper (if not ethics) that under the worst circumstances, following him still seems tempting.
This kind of brash posturing is exactly why I went into this movie assuming I'd hate it. I expected a bunch of long-winded monologues, equivalent to whipping it out to be measured. But, almost immediately, it becomes a film about credibility and how it is proven.
If you're looking for two actors that epitomize self-confidence without the holding typecasting stigma of mobsters, you're left with Ethan Hawke and Denzel Washington. They are the ones you go to for long-winded monologues about coolness or anger, respectively. Here, though, that expectation is channeled and used to flesh out the film.
Hawke plays a rookie cop, all talent in a system where talent isn't enough. He's got the 'eye' and can defeat two rapists by hand, but he will never make detective without going through the narcotics squad led by Washington.
The first stumbling block for Hawke is ignoring petty criminals in order to catch the big ones. One of the hundreds of metaphors Washington roars in the film is, 'Let the garbage men take out the garbage. We're the anglers.'
Over the course of a day, by way of dozens more ethical stumbling blocks, Hawke finds out that not just Washington but a large part of the legal system is corrupt as well. Washington is too powerful to take on alone.
He finds himself tainted and stuck with no room to escape. Director Antoine Fuqua (who has learned a lot about storytelling since 'The Replacement Killers') creates a fascinating rising tension, though somewhat disjointed by coincidence just before the third-act showdown.
It's interesting to see how the movie uses its actors' past credibility. For instance, from the start, Hawke's character has arrived into a higher social level in the department, and he has to be submissive to Washington. We never see the cockiness he must have had as a skilled basic trainee. Yet, anyone who has seen any other Hawke movie has seen him play cocky; that's all we've seen him play before. In a way, his acting career provides character background.
So too does Washington's career. He plays strong men'men who give speeches to be heard. That's exactly how his character in 'Training Day' starts out. It's up to Hawke to pull the carpet out from under that strength.
Reputation plays a role as well in the casting of the movie's extras from the recording industry. Dr. Dre shows up, imposing as hell. Snoop shows up too, and you can see how the movie puts him in a wheelchair to try and dampen some of the intimidation he normally musters.
Even Macy Gray (who has no credibility in my estimation of her as a record-company creation, whose session musicians write the songs) has a part. I guess if you show up to every awards show high, you too can gain the presence to play a drug dealer's wife.
If you like this movie, you probably already enjoy the alpha-male mafia movies I could recommend. The rookie-cop movie 'The Corruptor' is kind of similar, but sacrifices the storytelling of 'Training Day' for more action. The only really good movie to recommend is 'Donnie Brasco,' but even that one has less of a focus on the cold-blooded male fight for dominance in 'Training Day.'
