Denzel Washington (Flight, He Got Game) and Ethan Hawke (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Boyhood) began their careers in 1985. Washington has a more storied career with four Oscar nominations between 1987 and 1999 (Cry Freedom, Glory, Malcolm X, The Hurricane). The underrated Hawke had starred in movies such as Reality Bites, Before Sunrise, Gattaca, and Hamlet before the turn of the century. But it took Antoine Fuqua’s (Southpaw, Tears of the Sun) gritty, determined, and so far over-the-top Training Day for these two Hollywood heavyweights to meet on the big screen for the first time. The result is the crowning acting achievement of each actor’s career.

Washington’s career is full of much-deserved accolades, but his performance as Alonzo, a crooked Los Angeles police officer, is the greatest of his career. Known for playing a loving protagonist in most of his earlier films, Washington showed he could play complex characters with darker sides. Two more notable performances were of Malcolm X in Malcolm X and Jake Shuttlesworth in He Got Game. While there were many other roles before the year 2000, including Trip in Glory, Steve Biko in Cry Freedom, Nick Styles in Ricochet, Joe Miller in Philadelphia, and Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter in Crimson Tide, none of these roles showed the range and depth that he was able to portray in Malcolm X and He Got Game.

From the film’s first moments, we know this will be a long day for Jake (Hawke). He’s just a year and a half out of the academy and still young and green. From the breakfast scene introducing him and Alonzo, we know there are better partnerships than one needs this initial conversation to take at face value. It could be widely understood (by some of us who are asked to mentor frequently, all too well) that Alonzo, a veteran cop likely set in his ways, wasn’t interested in mentoring anyone new to the force. After ten minutes of Alonzo asking questions that, no matter how Jake responded, he’d turn around and use against him, we learn Jake doesn’t have a chance with Alonzo. It’s not a question of whether the day will go poorly for Jake, but how badly it will end for him.

Alonzo is an evil man, and Washington proves just how dark a character he can portray in this, his first real shot at it. There is very little redeemable about Alonzo. While he tries to justify his evil acts by pointing to the good he does for others, anyone in law enforcement who tries to justify breaking the law as they see fit is what sometimes gives the profession a bad name. Alonzo has a God complex, and it comes out early and often.

Jake, meanwhile, learned more about the corrupt Los Angeles police force in one day than most people learn in their entire first year on the job. One critique I often use in film is that a character changes too much in too short a period. It drives me crazy. All of Training Day takes place in just under 24 hours. Alonzo stays the same because he is already so well developed, and a change like that would come across as careless and weak. And it would ruin the movie. But with a character as fresh as Jake, who is thrown into an environment where he expects things to go one way only to learn that everything he thought was completely different works. I will say, though, that maybe Jake is too ignorant. His time at the academy would have taught him that there is much more grey when a cop is out on patrol.

Sure, he is idealistic and wants to do things the right way, but he had to have learned the difference between book smarts and street smarts at the academy. While the lessons he received on day one from Alonzo probably were missing from the course syllabus, he would have known to listen and learn from someone he was learning from on the job. It’s a minor complaint, though. Alonzo had it out for him since before he even arrived. As you learn more about the backstory, you’ll see how everything does interweave. The writing and storytelling are very purposeful.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a movie as intense and driven while still examining so many character issues. The performances from the two leads were the best of 2001 and two of the best of the entire decade. Likewise, you’ll find yourself invested from the opening scene to the final one. It will leave you satisfied while raising unique and essential questions at the same time. I hope Washington and Hawke reunite in a future film. Both were deserving of their nominations. Washington absolutely deserved his win. Hawke deserved one as well. Enjoy this high-octane ride!

Plot 9.5/10 (a unique spin…quite unbelievable at first until we learn more about Alonzo)
Character Development 10/10
Character Chemistry 10/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 9/10
Directing  9.5/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 9.5/10
Universal Relevance 9/10
95.5%

A

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