The good news is, Jake Hoyt is getting promoted. Way to go, Jake. The bad news? Well, he’s a cop heading to narcotics as an undercover officer in one of the most notorious areas of Los Angeles. Ain’t that just the way. But at least he’s teamed up with a seasoned and decorated partner named Alonzo Harris, whose long record on these rough streets will help make his first day on the job smooth. Again, nice going, Jake. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, pretty much everything it turns out. Harris is a violent, corrupt, cheating psychopath angrily hunted by a vengeful Russian Mafia seeking blood money. Excellent. No bother for Alonzo though, who ruthlessly and aggorantly rules over his broken domain with a pair of silver Smith & Wesson 4506 pistols under his black leather coat, planning the next 24 hours as ways to tie up loose ends by stealing millions from creaky connections and stopping anyone in his way by blasting one’s mortal coil from here to Kingdom Come and back. It’s not a good start for a new job is what I’m saying.
Training Day is a 2001 drama from director Antoine Fuqua starring Denzel Washington as Harris and Ethan Hawke as Hoyt, critically favored and considered a box office success. It earned Washington his second Academy Award and Hawke a much-deserved nomination, with both these actors entirely the reason behind why anyone should watch, it’s steadily inflating and illogical story perhaps less so.
Washington got heaped with attention for his gutsy portrayal of a cop teetering just on the edge of lunacy, emboldened by power and practically taunting fate to run him over like a diesel locomotive over a shiny new penny, and honestly, let’s face it, very few actors could make a ridiculous line like “King Kong ain’t got shit on me” work, but he does and it resonates, creating a volcanic character cut from prosaic cloth. Alonzo Harris become an iconic movie madman before the movie even ended.
Either way, what we get is a deeply compelling character study of contrasts, where the cliché rookie has to learn the ropes from the master in unusual ways, the film flipping the script of sorts so that the earnest newbie is saddled with a supercilious street soldier wholly and forever tainted by the poor decisions he’s let his career become. Not unsurprisingly, that’s fun to watch, fueled by a perfectly-cast pair of actors who find the right balance in driving the punchy plot to it cartoonish end.
I want to focus on Hawke though, who I feel is one of the best of his generation, admittedly agreeing that he is sort of better in films that allow his natural vulnerability and wallflower-esque appeal to flourish rather than movies that try to paint him as something else. He’s not an action star and doesn’t have the look or established “type” to be a tough guy, movies like Dead Poets Society, the Before series and Snow Falling on Cedars perfect examples of how a smart script and a good director can best utilize his boyish presence.
That’s what we get with Hawke in Training Day, immediately feeling he’s sort of wrong as a gritty LA cop, the idea of him moving to narcotics already a tough sell, which is exactly the point Fuqua is making. You don’t even need to be all that familiar with Hawke’s filmography to see how he doesn’t fit the mold and makes us a little tense with apprehension as he straps on his weapon and badge. You just know this little fella be gettin’ into trouble right quick. Lo, the movie delivers.
So it is, Hawke’s sheepishly cornered appearance makes his place next to the bombastic, radiating Washington feel all the more like his character is walking into a den a wolves, one particularly set in make one’s training day less so about learnin’ things and more about the feelin’ the pain. It’s terrific casting and equally good acting, and the film’s early moments that further allows these cops to find footing on opposite ends of the moral spectrum truly create a solid sense of investment, even as you know the outcome, the long carved-in-stone David versus Goliath arc rigidly bolted to the foundations of the movie.
That’s best played out in a scene fairly near the start where Jake and Alonzo are cruising the streets. Jake is finding that things are not all that good in the world Alonzo orbits, drugs and money already in play, and not from where Jake expects. I’ll let you discover more on that on your own so let’s skip a bit to where Jake finds himself witness to a terrifying attack on a 14-year-old school girl in an alley by two homeless addicts, looking to rape the child and steal her money. Jake leaps in and takes a beating but is able to eventually overcome the two and save the girl. Whew. As it unfolds though, we see that Alonzo simply watches, almost perversely, not getting involved until the physical violence ends before making his decidedly Alonzo trademarked stamp on the action. This involves plenty of sneering and yelling and malicious laughing. You know, the kinda thing you want from your local cop protecting and serving. Either way, after the girl escapes, Jake realizes she’s dropped her tiny pink wallet in the scuffle, and so puts it in his pocket, we assume, to send to her later.
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The scene seems only to further build on the fact that Alonzo is a power-hungry maniac, a loose cannon loaded and lit, caring little for his young protege. And it works, the moment’s outcome quickly fading in our minds as the central story takes hold. That is until far later in the film when it all come full circle and Jake finds himself in a room of thugs playing cards while he waits on Alonzo to finish up some business with the gang’s leader. What we get here is a downright crackling, palpitating moment of urgency and pressure that is easily one of the most impactful in the genre, where a good guy is in the wrong place to levels of squeamish uncomfortableness, leading to a flashfire combustion of tinder matter that is, well, hard to watch actually, even as you cannot take your eyes off what’s happening.
And what’s happening I won’t say for those who haven’t seen the film, but it’s great story-telling and very smart moviemaking, Fuqua holding absolute mastery of the pace and execution of a moment that boils with coming violence, led by Hawke, who feels threatened throughout the film, here sprung inside a house of horrors, betrayed and brutalized to what surely seems Jake’s end. He’s not the only one making this work, though. Credit goes to Noel Gugliemi, Raymond Cruz, and especially Cliff Curtis as the others in this cramped setting, creating a powerful sense of authenticity to a film that to this point is steadily finding its wheels slip off that track. Either way, how this one scene plays it out is riveting stuff, real nail-biter material that I’ve played back over several times from start to finish, watching the subtle nuances and plays on light and timing that create havoc on the nerves. This is a great movie moment.
Training Day is a defining film for Denzel Washington, he most remembered for his incendiary performance, but it’s worth watching just to see what Ethan Hawke does in a part that could have easily been destructive to the movie if cast with what some might consider needing a more burly actor. That’s the real takeaway from Fuqua’s film, he using violence where it’s need but letting the conflicts be that of wits and wonder rather than fists and fighting. Get it on your list.