Training Day
dir. Antoine Fuqua
Warner Bros.

Training Day begins early one morning with Jake Hoyt (Hawke) waking up to the sight of his beautiful, young wife breastfeeding their baby. Jake professes his love like a good guy ought to. Then he gets his gun and prepares to make the most challenging leap in his law enforcement career. Jake has one patrol shift to impress lead undercover officer Alonzo Harris (Washington) and earn his chance to be a narc.

Sure, a job infiltrating the drug world seems like the last thing a sensible man with a fledgling family would want. But Jake is a standup gent. He yearns to cuff the bad boys, to topple gold-chain cartels and sweep the streets clean for earnest citizens everywhere. With dew in his eyes, Jake is genuine and pure in his desires. He is set up perfectly to be screwed by reality.

Enter Alonzo, a veteran officer who is as comfortable employing bribery and violence as he is flashing a warrant. Manipulating Jake's desperation to win his blessing, Alonzo intimidates the rookie for fun and plays him like a pawn for private gain.

Neither Jake nor Alonzo would be terribly intriguing if Hawke and Washington did not inject the characters with their charisma and screen history. Hawke still totes the innocent charm he first displayed in Dead Poets Society, and even though he sports a ratty mustache and goatee in Training Day, to look at Hawke is to see a kid with lots to learn. As for Washington, he packs the sly smile and crushing authority that have built his reputation. He is Malcolm X and Hurricane Carter. Actors with weaker public images would have difficulty fleshing out Jake and Alonzo, essentially simple characters of naïve goodness and clever evil, respectively.

Hawke and Washington also strip their characters' relationship and struggle down to its most fundamental element: power. Alonzo wields it; Jake wants it. The officer's differences in age, race and experience are asides. Jake wishes to display his ability and render himself invaluable to his superior; Alonzo uses his power to make the rookie invaluable indeed, but, the audience comes to realize, not in the way Jake expects.

As Training Day develops, director Antoine Fuqua's camerawork amplifies the action. With jump cuts and close shots, he brings the streets to life. The heat of asphault, the lunacy of traffic and the depravity of narrow alleys crowd in on the characters. It's urban decay as co-star.

Cruising wickedly on several cylinders, Training Day offers excitement but no education. The film's cynical lessons are dated. (Newsflash: Courtroom justice is corrupt. Drug dealers and thugs are motherless maggots. Police badges and unchecked power reduce lost souls to slime. And crime never pays.) Yet by keeping its themes elementary, Training Day allows the audience to indulge in its other enticing elements.

The film is intent on being candy for relaxed brains, not food for thought. And in its noble, hearty mission, Training Day blossoms where others this season (Glitter, Zoolander) merely withered. There are no weighty issues to ponder when the credits roll. Instead, one fixates on a particular scene, line or movement. The pieces offer more satisfaction than the whole, but to its credit, those pieces come together well. It is an unapologetic movie for the masses that doesn't leave the audience soiled in shame. Thank heaven, someone still makes visceral, clean fun.

— Rasheed Newson (rasheednewson@hotmail.com)