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Playing against type
[Photos: Warner Bros]
Denzel Washington plays a corrupt, unlikable narcotics detective in Training Day. |
By STEVE PERSALL
© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 4, 2001
Those who have admired Denzel Washington in heroic roles, beware: This one is different. But his performance is incendiary.
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Denzel Washington delivers a sucker-punch performance in Training Day, playing a narcotics cop whose amorality contradicts everything we've known about the actor through his films. Washington has always been the upright, incorruptible hero. Not this time.
Washington turns his screen image inside out as Detective Alonzo Harris, whose only goal is to serve and protect himself. He's too wise to the streets, no better and often worse than the gangbangers he busts. The only glimmer of caring this rogue cop displays is toward his otherwise ignored and illegitimate son. Dirtier than Harry Callahan, riskier than Popeye Doyle, Harris is a nasty piece of work.
Casting Washington in this role was a terrific idea. It's one that many other nice-guy actors wouldn't attempt. Washington responds to the challenge by daring us not to like such a despicable person as Harris. Washington uses the traits making him popular -- unblinking assertion and deliberate listening -- to make a monster seem noble. When Harris rages, we recoil at the shock of seeing a statue knee-deep in clay.
Washington’s protege is Ethan Hawke, a rookie working his first day with the narcotics unit.
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Training Day is worth the price of admission just to witness Washington's Shakespearean take on the crooked-cop cliche, a mix of Lear's bluster and the madness of Othello. We keep anticipating some moment when Harris will rediscover the humanity that made him want to be a policeman in the first place. Don't hold your breath.
Director Antoine Fuqua (The Replacement Killers) wisely constructs every possible scene around his incendiary star, trading depth of story for showcases. The plot, such as it is, has Harris paired with Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), a straitlaced rookie cop on his first day with the narcotics unit. Hoyt doesn't like Harris' tactics but isn't in a position to protest.
The two plainclothes officers spend the day cruising through the worst 'hoods in L.A. in Harris' "office," a jacked-up black Monte Carlo. Informants are contacted; stops are made without arrest if Harris gets something on the side. Training Day works best as an aimless character study, something like The New Centurions, until screenwriter David Ayer is compelled to funnel all these vibrant impressions into a clumsily compact, ultraviolent finale.
The last act of Fuqua's film suffers from Harris' disappearance for about 15 minutes, then his reappearance as every bogeyman we've seen carrying a gun. The director's willingness to let scenes linger for Washington's muse doesn't work for the other actors. Hawke, for example, is more convincing as the slightly doofy rookie than the avenger he becomes.
Training Day does include choice minor roles for three musicians who acquit themselves well. Macy Gray does a dynamic turn as a crack mom rousted by Harris, Dr. Dre scores as a simmering cop, and Snoop Dogg is very good as a paraplegic drug dealer. One thing you can say about rap: Counting stars like LL Cool J and Ice Cube, no other music culture ever turned out as many immediately capable actors.
Training Day
- Trade: B
- Director: Antoine Fuqua
- Cast: Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Scott Glenn, Eva Mendes, Snoop Dogg, Macy Gray, Dr. Dre, Harris Yulin
- Screenplay: David Ayer
- Rating: R; harsh violence and profanity, drug abuse, brief frontal nudity
- Running time: 120 min.
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