Superbly watchable tale of corrupt cops is led by Washington’s swaggeringly malign detective, out to bully Ethan Hawke into wrongdoing
his LA crime thriller from 2001, written by David Ayer and directed by Antoine Fuqua and with cameos from Eva Mendes, Macy Gray, Snoop Dogg and Terry Crews, is as superbly watchable as ever; it is as instantly and horribly addictive as the PCP that Denzel Washington’s imperiously corrupt cop makes his rookie underling Ethan Hawke smoke on the job as a grisly initiation ceremony.
Hawke plays fresh-faced rookie cop Jake Hoyt, with a wife and baby daughter, excited about a possible promotion to the LAPD undercover narcotics division; to prove himself, he must ride along for a “training day” with the charismatic but sinister veteran officer Detective Alonzo Harris, unforgettably played by Washington.
Alonzo’s mission on this training day is to get Hoyt’s “cherry popped” – in effect, to get him used to the corruption and to get Jake irreversibly smeared with some corruption of his own so that he will not be tempted to be a boy scout and inform on his fellow LAPD officers. But more than this, Alonzo is worried about a debt to certain Russian businessman he has incurred on a recent visit to Las Vegas.
Training Day is most enjoyable in the outrageous way that Alonzo drives around town, greeting his various contacts, allies and glowering informants and treating us to the classic Washington swagger as he gets in and out of his car. You can see Washington’s Alonzo as politician and leader, with resemblances to his Malcolm X and Macbeth, though it’s fair to say Washington has never quite topped this performance.
Training Day is released on 25 August in UK cinemas, and is streaming on Stan and Netflix in Australia.
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